


Study Buddies

by Apathetic_Abstract_Apotheosis



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Lesbian Character, Light Angst, Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25783291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apathetic_Abstract_Apotheosis/pseuds/Apathetic_Abstract_Apotheosis
Summary: Amity was certain her interest in Luz was purely academic. The human was an oddity after all, why wouldn't she be interested in her? Therefore, the only logical thing to do would be to get as close to Luz as possible, just so she could study the human and her strange magic. What could possibly go wrong?
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda
Comments: 63
Kudos: 579





	1. Chapter 1

It was just academic interest, that’s all it was, Amity was certain of it. What else could it be? Here was a Human able to perform magic, a hitherto unknown feat, and using those strange drawings too. After sort of making up with the Huma- with  _ Luz  _ after the library incident, Amity had intended to keep her as far away from Hexside, and by extension, Ed and Em, as possible. Who knew what those two would have gotten up to if they’d learned about Luz’s magic, limited though it may be.

But alas, that plan had been scuppered by Luz enrolling in Hexside, though it didn’t really change anything. In fact, it may have provided her with a new opportunity to learn more about Luz’s strange magic. After all, she wasn’t the top student in the abomination track for nothing, and even if what Luz was doing wasn’t actually what she should be studying, Amity would be remiss if she were to let this odd sliver of magical knowledge pass her by.

She’d been terrified the whole ‘accidentally setting Willow’s mind on fire’ thing would be the final straw in what was already a rather tentative friendship, but they’d somehow come out stronger, despite Amity showing one of her greatest moments of weakness.

And that brought her right about up to the present. With a deep sigh, Amity set down her pen and waited a moment for the ink in her diary to dry. She’d been reluctant to start writing in it again after Ed and Em had tried to steal it, but she had some things she’d needed to get off her chest and her diary was the only one she could think of to help with that.

She chose to ignore the fact that almost all of the things she’d needed to say had been related to Luz in some way and closed the diary. Getting up from her writing desk, Amity walked over to the small bookshelf in her room and moved a few of the books aside to stash it in its new hiding place. She knew it probably wasn’t the best idea to hide it in the very place the people who had previously tried to steal it lived, but then again, it would be the last place they’d look for it, and she hoped they’d suspect she hid it elsewhere.

Replacing the books, Amity straightened up and looked around, almost expecting her parents to be looming over her and asking why she was associating with the apprentice of the most wanted criminal in all of The Boiling Isles. She wasn’t sure why she felt so guilty about it either, Luz had been given special dispensation to study at Hexside, after all. Although she was fairly certain Principal Bump was bending more than a few rules to do so, especially in allowing Luz to study all the disciplines.

When she’d first learned about this, Amity had considered asking for the same treatment. She was, after all, a favourite of Lilith and despite the debacle at the Covention, still favoured to join the Emperor’s Coven once she’d graduated. As someone tapped for such greatness, it made sense that she should study all the magic tracks. It was why she wanted to join the coven in the first place, to learn as much as she could.

But ultimately, she’d stuck with abominations. She didn’t need to break or bend the rules to prove she was the best. She’d achieve greatness  _ without _ resorting to such methods. And yet, and yet, the allure of Luz and her strange magic still called to her.

Sighing deeply, Amity wandered over to her bed and flopped back onto it. She’d completed all her homework with plenty of time to spare, so the rest of her evening was free. She could try to find some new materials to read over about the potions track. After seeing what could be done by combining plants with abominations, she’d had a couple of ideas for combining potions with her abominations. All theoretical, of course, she’d never break the coven laws.

Where could she get that from though? There was always Boscha, but Amity really didn’t want to deal with her any more than strictly necessary. Other than Boscha, Amity knew nobody else in the potions track.

Nobody except Luz, that is.

Once again, Amity found her thoughts dragged back to the curious human. There had to be a reason for it. Making up her mind, Amity got up from her bed and gathered up a few things she’d need. If her mind was going to keep fixating on Luz, then she may as well be productive about it.

She intended to sneak out of the manor without anybody noticing her absence, but that plan was scuppered by a sing-song voice calling out to her just as she was about to slip out the front doors.

“Oh, Mittens ~ , where are you going?” Amity felt her eye twitch just a little as she turned back to see Ed and Em lounging against the railing overlooking the foyer with identical smirks of mischief. It hadn’t been much of a surprise that the whole ‘we care deeply for our little sister’ thing they’d done after the library incident had only been a temporary measure until her anger had cooled sufficiently. Now, the pair were back to their usual antics, and were still getting away with it.

“None of your business.” Amity gritted out, turning back to the door but, freezing with her hand on the handle as Em called out.

“But it is our business, unless you want it to become Mother and Father’s business too, that is.” Sighing deeply, Amity stared resolutely at the door as she answered.

“Since when were you two the tattling types? I thought that was what you hated me for.”

“Oh, it is. But we’ve also seen the error of our ways and that includes ensuring our Mittens doesn’t follow in our footsteps.” Amity’s grip on the door handle tightened at the barely suppressed glee in Ed’s voice and she was now starting to seriously regret saving them from the Slitherbeast back on the Knee.

“I’m going out to Skara’s house, I’ll be back later.” Amity hoped this was believable. Out of all the girls she was forced to hang out with, Skara was the most tolerable, a fact Amity made very well known.

“If you say so, Mittens.” It didn’t take a genius like Amity to notice the edge of sarcasm in Em’s voice. “Say hi to the cutie for us!”

“Since when have you called Skara ‘cutie’?”

“Oh, we’re not talking about Skara, we’re talking about Luz. You know, the girl you’re actually going to see.” Amity’s heart stuttered in her chest and she slowly swivelled to look up at her older siblings.

“How did you know?”

“You’re not like us illusion specialists, Mittens, you’re an awful liar.” Ed smirked down at Amity.

“And we didn’t know, but thanks for confirming for us!” Em chirped, an identical smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Toddle off, then, Mittens!”

“That’s it?” Amity narrowed her eyes suspiciously up at Ed and Em. “You’re just letting me go?”

The twins exchanged a glance and shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much.” They said in unison.

“Believe it or not, we do care about you, Mittens. Luz is cool, and you could do with some of that in your life.” Em continued, giving Amity what was probably supposed to be a supportive smile. “So go, before someone else catches you.”

Blinking in surprise a few times, Amity turned back to the door and opened it, slipping out into the afternoon and making her way down the hill that Blight Manor sat upon.

* * *

Amity wasn’t entirely sure of how to get to the ‘Owl House’, as Luz had called it, but she’d been once before and that should have been enough. As it turned out, it wasn’t, and Amity spent what felt like hours fighting her way through various woods on the outskirts of Bonesborough to find it.

Just as she was about to give up hope and try to find her way back home, Amity pushed aside a branch and stumbled forward into a small clearing. There, at the end of it, was a familiar house with a familiarly annoying voice.

“Hooty hoo!” Rolling her eyes, Amity approached the irritating owl head embedded in the door and cleared her throat.

“Excuse me, is Luz in?” Amity wasn’t entirely sure what the etiquette required for sentient dwellings was, so she resolved to be polite to the strange thing.

“Hoo, well, that depends.”

“Depends on what?” The house opened its beak to respond, but it was interrupted by a loud and grating voice from inside.

“Hooty! Who is it?!” The voice didn’t bother letting the house answer as the door was flung open and Amity came face to staff with the Owl Lady herself. “Oh, it’s you. The girl who burned that other girl’s memories.”

“Thanks for the reminder.” Amity grumbled as the Owl Lady lowered her staff and looked curiously down at her.

“So, what do you want, kid?”

“I have a name, you know.” Amity huffed before remembering exactly who she was talking to. “I was wondering if Luz was in.”

“She might be.” Amity did not like that tone of voice, or how the Owl Lady’s golden fang glinted as she grinned. “Why do you wanna know?”

“Because I wanted to see her?” Shuffling uncomfortably beneath the Owl Lady’s gaze, Amity got the odd impression she was being interrogated for some reason.

“Interesting… Well, you kids have fun!” The Owl Lady shrugged and meandered back into her house, leaving the door wide open.

“Um…?”

“Well, don’t just stand there, you’re letting Hooty see inside.” Jumping at the instruction, Amity hurried inside, pushing the door closed behind her and ignoring the hoot of disappointment from the door itself. “Luz is somewhere in the back. Touch anything and I’ll use one of my many Human torture devices on you.”

The Owl Lady glowered threateningly at Amity, who nodded in agreement, remembering being given a similar threat the last time she was here. The Owl Lady must be very protective of her things. “Right, well, if you’ll excuse me, I have a tiny demon to humiliate. Ha! The fool thought he’d finally come up with a bet he could actually win!”

Cackling to herself, The Owl Lady wandered off, leaving Amity to navigate the strange house on her own. Tentatively, Amity walked deeper into the house, wondering where Luz could be. The house seemed a lot bigger on the inside than it appeared from the outside, but that wasn’t exactly uncommon. The Construction Coven did it on a regular basis.

She was saved from having to wander around the house aimlessly for another several hours by the faint sound of humming emanating from a nearby room. Rolling her eyes at the tuneless noise, Amity opened the door to reveal Luz lying on her stomach and kicking her legs in the air.

“Luz?” With a squeak of surprise, the girl rolled over and hopped to her feet.

“Amity!” The human all but threw herself at Amity and wrapped her in a hug. Squawking in shock, Amity nearly overbalanced, and she felt her cheeks burn strangely. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.” Amity shrugged awkwardly as Luz continued to cling onto her, trying to play it off as no big deal, which it was. “I figured since you’re on all the tracks, you might have some learning materials for potions.”

With a loud gasp, Luz released Amity to stare at her with wide eyes and slack jaw. “Ohmygosh, are you considering dual-tracking too?!” The Human squealed in excitement before Amity clapped a hand over her mouth. Glancing around worriedly just in case someone had heard this heresy, Amity breathed a sigh of relief that nobody had noticed and released Luz.

“I am not considering-,” Amity glanced around again before dropping her voice to a whisper. “Dual-tracking.”

“Then why do you want potions stuff?” Luz cocked her head curiously, and Amity sighed.

“Since I intend to join the Emperor’s Coven, it only makes sense that I have a thorough grounding in the other disciplines of magic in preparation. I’m not going to cast any spells, of course, just understand them.” Amity waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t need to bend the rules to achieve my greatness and learn all I need to.”

“Sure!” Beaming happily, Luz bounded away to rummage through a pile of books haphazardly stacked in a corner. Amity couldn’t help but wince at the treatment of the poor books, and Luz seemed to almost sense this as she called over her shoulder. “Eda didn’t have any spare bookshelves for my textbooks.”

Amity simply rolled her eyes at the excuse and cast her gaze around the room whilst Luz continued her search. The Witch’s eyes fell upon a small lit candle sitting in the middle of the room, right in front of where Luz had been lying.

“Why do you have a candle in the middle of your floor?” Amity asked, crouching down to look at the tiny flickering light.

“Oh, I was trying to learn a new spell!” Luz chirped, abandoning her search for a potions book and skipping over to flop down beside Amity.

“What?”

“Oh, I never told you exactly what happened on the Knee, did I?” Luz grinned up at Amity in excitement. “So you know I showed you how I do magic, right?”

“You draw those weird circle things.” Amity confirmed, rather confused what this had to do with watching a candle and learning a new spell.

“Right! Well, I learned my first spell by watching Eda draw a magic circle for light, and in the circle, for just the teensiest tiniest moment, was a glyph!” Luz grabbed a loose piece of paper and quickly sketched out the odd pattern she’d shown Amity before at the Covention. “This one!” She tapped the paper which folded in on itself and became a small ball of light.

“Those are in spell circles?!” Amity felt her jaw drop. She’d never heard of this before, not in any of her extra-curricular studies.

“Yup! You can’t see them normally, they’re gone too quickly, but I was able to film it with this!” Stuffing a hand into her pocket, Luz pulled out an odd black glass rectangle thing.

“O-kay?”

“But I dropped it, and now I can’t do that anymore.” Luz sighed, putting the thing away before immediately brightening up. “So Eda told me that the old witches, when they first did magic, did it by connecting with nature, with the wild.” Amity couldn’t help but frown at the idea of connecting with nature. It was so… disorganised. The coven system brought neatness and order to a chaotic world, to give into this ‘wild’...

“And that’s what you were doing on the Knee with your mentor.”

“Yup! So we spent some time doing stuff like eating snow, you know, then there was that whole thing where I borrowed your wand.” Luz chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of her head.

“I remember.”

“Yeah, so then when you trapped me in that cage thingy, I decided to try connecting with nature again and it worked!” Luz threw her hands up in the air as she cheered for herself quietly.

“Right…” Amity was struggling to think why her mind kept coming back to this very nice and pretty yet incredibly strange Human.

“I saw my light glyph in the stars, and then I saw my ice glyph in the snowflakes! Magic is a gift from the isles and it comes from nature itself!” Somehow, Luz’s grin grew even wider, as she gazed avidly at Amity.

“So you were looking at the candle flame because you were hoping you’d see another one of these glyphs?” That actually made a surprising amount of sense, in direct contrast to pretty much everything Luz did.

“Bingo!” Amity had no idea what that meant, but it seemed to be positive, so she allowed herself a small smile. “I just gotta connect with nature, and blam! New spell!”

“How long have you been looking at the candle?” Just like that, Luz wilted as though all her bones had suddenly vanished, which was a distinct possibility given some of the demonic inhabitants of the Isles.

“I’ve been looking at it for hoooooooouuuuuuuursssssssss.” Luz groaned, flopping onto her back and staring up at the ceiling. “Maybe two spells is all I’ll ever learn. Some witch I’ll be, conjuring lights and ice pillars.”

“Maybe you’re not ‘connecting with nature’ properly?” Amity suggested with a shrug. “I mean, a candle indoors probably isn’t the best way to ‘connect with nature’ is it?” Luz bolted upright, staring at Amity with joy shining in her eyes.

“Amity, you’re a genius!”

“It has been said.” Amity preened just a little as Luz continued to babble.

“If I want to learn the glyph for fire, I need to experience it out in the wild! I should go set some trees on fire!” Wait, what?

“Luz, I don’t think that’s a good idea!” Amity grabbed Luz by the arm before she could run off and become a pyromaniac. “That could be dangerous!”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right.” Luz deflated again and slumped back to the floor. “I just got overexcited like I always do.”

“Maybe you can find a less… destructive glyph out in the wilds instead.” Amity offered, for some reason feeling quite upset that the wind had been taken out of Luz’s sails.

“I guess…” Luz grumbled, folding her arms. “But I wanted to learn fire so I could be like Eda. Have you seen her throwing fireballs?” Amity shook her head. She hadn’t been privy to seeing much of the Owl Lady’s magic, just that sleep spell. “She’s so cool! She goes like, Kapow! Pshaow! Skaboom! You know?”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Amity replied dryly as Luz waved her hands animatedly in what were probably supposed to be demonstrations of fireball slinging. “Well, I’m sure you’ll learn it one day.”

“I hope so, I wanna become a powerful witch, just like Eda! But I can’t do that with only two spells.” Amity opened her mouth, then closed it again, then opened it.

“Maybe I could help?” She asked quietly, and was suddenly left gasping for breath as Luz suddenly collided with her and knocked her to the ground with a tight hug.

“You want to help me?” Luz was positively beaming at Amity, who once again felt her face flush for some reason, and she looked away, unable to look Luz in the eye.

“I mean, I could if you want me to. I will admit, I’m intrigued by this new-old form of magic you’ve discovered.”

“We can learn it together, then!” Luz cheered, releasing Amity from her hug and sitting up eagerly. “Ohmygosh! We can be study buddies!” Amity had no idea what being a study buddy entailed, nor was she all that thrilled to be called one. But Luz’s enthusiasm was incredibly infectious, and Amity couldn’t help but smile just a little as Luz continued babbling. Even with this good mood Luz had put her in, Amity couldn’t help but wonder exactly what she’d just gotten herself into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I was going to stick with my normal posting schedule for this initially, but then Grom happened and I had to post this now. Once again I am diving headfirst into a new fandom just because I have a thing for uppity lesbians. Don't judge me!
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being just the sweetest. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and putting up with my incoherent screeching at how adorable Amity is.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	2. Chapter 2

“Not that I don’t trust you, Luz, but was this strictly necessary?” Amity sighed deeply as she tried fruitlessly to free herself from her bindings. It was the day after Amity had suggested she help Luz with her magic and connecting with nature and the moment school had finished Luz had dragged her off into the woods talking a mile a minute about finding new glyphs.

Amity wasn’t the biggest fan of nature at the best of times, and being attacked by some hideous spider demon before getting webbed up and suspended upside down in a tree was definitely not the best of times.

“Well, you gotta get out in nature to connect with it, you said it yourself.” Luz chirped, weirdly chipper for someone who was also hanging by her ankles. “And you’ve gotta expect at least a little danger out here. We’ll be fine though, Amity. King will fetch Eda and she’ll get us out of this.”

Luz’s confidence did boost Amity’s own, but not by much. “That’s easy enough to say, but I get the feeling we’re going to become demon lunch very soon.” Looking over at the tree, Amity did not like the way the demon was eyeing them up. She wasn’t sure what it was waiting for, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know either.

“You worry too much about this stuff.” Luz reassured Amity as she rotated slowly. “We’ve gotten out of worse scrapes than this. Remember the Slitherbeast?”

“We weren’t the ones trapped then.” Amity reminded Luz with a sigh. If she could just get even a finger free, she could draw a small spell circle for fire and maybe get them out of this. Unfortunately, the demon seemed to be practiced in the art of fully restricting a witch’s movements. “This time Eda’s free, so she can save us no problem.”

“If you say so.” Amity sighed, slumping as best as she could in her bonds. She was not a big fan of feeling helpless like this. She hadn’t liked it when she’d nearly been stitched into a book and she didn’t like it now. She was supposed to become a powerful witch and join the Emperor’s Coven.

“I’m sorry, Amity.” Amity tried to swing around to look at Luz, but her motion ended up leaving her rotating slowly without any control. As she turned, she caught a glimpse of Luz out of the corner of her eye and was surprised to see the human looked very guilty all of a sudden. “I probably should have thought this through before I dragged you out here.”

Luz sniffed loudly, and as Amity turned to face Luz again, she was surprised to see some tears in the earnest girl’s eyes. For some reason it made her heart clench and her stomach squirm uncomfortably “Hey, Luz, it’s going to be okay, just like you said.”

“I guess…” Luz mumbled, not sounding all that convinced despite it being her own previously-stated convictions. “What if Eda doesn’t come? What if she’s tired of saving me all the time from all these scrapes?”

“Luz, she’ll come. And you’re just an apprentice, you’re bound to get into trouble and need helping out every so often.” Amity tried to reassure Luz as she continued to rotate. She was actually starting to feel a little queasy from the slow spinning.

“There they are!” A high pitched voice squealed out and Amity craned her neck to see Luz’s little demon friend had returned and was pointing a claw up at them. “Eda! They’re not demon chow yet!”

“Good, I’d hate for my apprentice to try and get out of helping clean Hooty again because she got eaten.” The gruff voice of the Owl Lady grumbled as she emerged from the woods, brushing leaves off of her and following where the demon was pointing. “How’s it hanging, you two?”

“Ha ha.” Amity laughed dryly, but it was drowned out by the small demon’s cackling.

“Hanging! Ha! Good one, Eda!” He chortled, flopping over as The Owl Lady rolled her eyes.

“It wasn’t that funny, King.” The Owl Lady stepped closer to the tree. “So, where’s the demon that did this to you?”

“Oh no.” Luz whined, looking past Amity and at the tree where the demon had been perched. Twisting wildly to look, Amity saw a distinct absence of demon.

“It was right there just a second ago.” Amity cried out, her neck straining as she looked around wildly for the creature.

“Eda, behind you!” Luz suddenly called out, and the Owl Lady spun around and jumped back as the demon came crashing down behind her.

“So you’re the demon who thinks he can eat my apprentice and her partner, huh?” The Owl Lady cocked her head at the demon, brandishing her staff. “Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to find a new meal.” Twirling her staff, the Owl Lady drew a spell circle in the air and launched a beam at the demon.

“Yeah, Eda!” Luz crowed, but her shout of approval died as the demon dodged out of the way of the spell and spat a line of web at the Owl Lady, which she only just managed to avoid. Her little demon was not so lucky, however.

“Ahhhhh, Edaaaaaa!” He cried out piteously as he was dragged towards the spider demon, flailing madly. “Save meeee!”

“Alright, jeez.” Amity could almost hear the woman rolling her eyes as she spun her staff again and, instead of a more harmless spell, fired off a massive fireball at the demon.

“That is not saving me!” The little demon shrieked as the fireball narrowly missed and singed him.

“Do you have a better idea?” Owl Lady snapped back before spinning out a few more spell circles.

“Eda, we can help, just get us free!” Luz called out, wiggling fruitlessly against her bonds.

“I’ve got this, girls.” The Owl Lady didn’t even bother to look back at them as she continued to assault the spider demon with an array of spells, but it was annoyingly quick and managed to dodge all of her attacks. “Stay still, won’t you!”

“Eda! Come on!” Luz whined, continuing her squirming to no avail. Amity just sighed and resigned herself to waiting out this fight. Much as she would love to get some measure of revenge on the demon, it seemed The Owl Lady didn’t want them interfering, and Amity could understand that.

That said, the Owl Lady looked like she could do with some help. None of her attacks were actually hitting the demon, and Amity had to wonder how tired she must be getting. Luz had now started attacking the webs with her teeth, but it was rather ineffective.

A loud yelp caught both their attention and they watched in shock as Eda was smacked back into a tree, having been hit hard by the little demon, who was now being wielded as a flail and was very not happy about it.

“Let go of me or I’m gonna hurl!” He squealed in protest, which he probably regretted a moment later as the spider demon released its hold on him to send him flying into the Owl Lady.

“Ow.” She wheezed as the skull-headed demon crashed into her and knocked all the breath out of her. “Okay, maybe I could use a hand.” She admitted begrudgingly, tracing a small circle with a finger and launching it at Amity.

Amity was pretty sure this was a terrible idea, as a small flame burned through the webbing and freed her whilst she was still dangling a great many feet above the ground. With a screech of fear, Amity flailed out and just managed to grab a hold of one of the loose webs that was still attached to the tree, which she clung onto for dear life.

“Amity, get me free now!” Luz called, swinging back and forth eagerly as Amity desperately held on.

“I’m a little busy right now, human!” She snapped back, her impending fall to her doom making her fall back on her more callous name for Luz. Laboriously, Amity pulled herself up the couple of feet to the branch, not paying attention to the continuing fight down below.

Once up on the branch, she proceeded to shuffle along until she stood directly over Luz and reached down to pull her up. This was far more physical exertion than Amity had expected to be doing today and she found herself wishing she had one of those Construction Coven power glyphs. Still, after some effort, she managed to balance Luz on the branch with her and traced a spell circle to conjure a flame to burn the human free.

“Okay, let’s get that big ol’ demon!” Luz cheered once she was freed, standing up and looking down at the forest floor. “Ooh, that’s not good.” Amity looked too and was rather surprised to see the Owl Lady flagging a little. She thought the Owl Lady was supposed to be one of the strongest witches in all the isles, able to fight even Lilith to a standstill. “I don’t think Eda’s taken her elixir recently.”

“Wait, elixir?”

“Doesn’t matter now, she needs our help.” Luz edged past Amity and ran for the tree trunk to shimmy down, Amity following in pursuit.

“Do you have a plan for fighting that thing?” Amity called down to Luz as they descended the tree. “And do you know any offensive magic other than your ice pillar?”

“Nope and nope.” Luz answered, far too cheerfully for someone with no plan. “I was kinda just gonna wing it and hope either you or Eda came up with one.”

“This can only go well.” Amity sighed, dropping the last couple of feet to the ground after Luz and already tracing out a spell circle of her own. “Abomination, rise.” With a moan, the purple alchemical solutions swirled and coalesced into an abomination, which lumbered towards the demon at Amity’s instruction.

The demon was already too fast for the Owl Lady, so it was far faster than Amity’s abomination, but it didn’t need to be fast, it just needed to keep the demon’s attention divided as it lurched around. Luz, meanwhile, was running around the three combatants, throwing down little slips of paper and tapping them. Pillars of ice shot up from the discarded glyphs and further hemmed in the demon as it kept trying to dodge Amity’s abomination and the Owl Lady’s various spells.

“Keep it up, girls!” The little skull-headed demon called out from nearby, still cocooned in webbing but shouting encouragement nonetheless. “You’ve nearly got him!”

Amity rolled her eyes, but kept directing the abomination to keep chasing the demon down, eventually cornering it against the ice pillars. “Get it!” She hollered, and her abomination lunged, only for the demon to leap over it.

It didn’t get very far, the Owl Lady appeared to have anticipated its escape and the demon ended up jumping right into a fireball that sent it flying away over the trees.

“Well, that took longer than necessary.” The Owl Lady grumbled, resting heavily on her staff as Luz skipped over and hugged her.

“Thanks for saving us, Eda.” She chirped and happily received a pat on the head from the older witch.

“Eh, it was nothing.” Waving off the thanks, the Owl Lady gently pushed her apprentice away. “Let’s get going, shall we?”

“Hey, don’t forget about me!” The small demon squawked in protest. “And don’t forget I’m the one who fetched Eda for you two.”

“Thank you, King.” Luz singsonged, walking over to the trussed up demon and picking him up. “Let’s get you home now.”

“Release me, I am the King of demons! I don’t need to be coddled like this!” The demon protested as Luz held him in her arms like a baby and started walking in what Amity assumed was the rough direction of the Owl House. Amity and the Owl Lady followed after her a little bit behind, the former rather confused as to why the older witch was walking alongside her instead of Luz.

“Ya know, kid, seeing you two fight together like that really reminded me of me and my sister when we were younger. Except for the part where you’re dating and not sisters.”

“What?!” Amity screeched in shock, her face turning bright pink as her shout drew Luz’s attention.

“Everything alright, Amity?” She asked in concern.

“Yes, everything’s fine!” The young witch answered hastily and tried her best to smile reassuringly as the Owl Lady stifled a snort of laughter. The moment Luz turned back away, Amity glared up at the Owl Lady. “We are not dating!” She hissed angrily, only for the Owl Lady to snort again.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really!” Amity insisted hotly. “I don’t even feel that way about Luz.”

“Sure you don’t.” The Owl Lady sounded incredibly smug for some reason. “My sister’s top protege just hangs around with my apprentice and the Bad Girl Coven for no reason whatsoever.”

“It’s just academic curiosity!” Amity continued to protest before stopping short as what the Owl Lady had just said hit her. “Wait, sister?”

“Didn’t you know Lilith is my baby sister?” The Owl Lady sounded genuinely shocked by this. “I thought it was common knowledge.”

“Lilith didn’t mention it at all.” Feeling oddly hurt, Amity looked away from the Owl Lady and folded her arms.

“I’m not surprised. It can’t be all that easy to be head of the Emperor’s Coven and have the most wanted criminal on the isles as your sister.” The Owl Lady also sounded rather disappointed too, but brightened up quickly and smirked down at Amity. “But no changing the subject. You really think your interest in Luz is purely academic?”

“Of course! Her magic is so strange, I have to know more about it.”

“Huh, maybe you’re not as much like Lilith as I thought.” The Owl Lady hummed in thought, her mischievous smile not shifting, however. “So you want to know more about Luz, huh?”

“Just her magic.” Amity stressed, the heat in her cheeks rising, but the Owl Lady did not seem all that convinced.

“Suuuuuuure.” She hesitated for a moment and reached out to pat Amity on the shoulder. She stopped very quickly though and withdrew her hand as though it had been burned. “Look, kid, if you say you’re not into Luz, then I believe you. If you are though, I’m not gonna judge or anything.”

“Well, there’s nothing for you to judge!” Amity huffed defiantly, crossing her arms and speeding up her walking to catch up to Luz.

“Hey, Amity.” Luz smiled cheerfully whilst the small demon continued to squirm in his cocoon in her arms. “Are you alright? Your cheeks are really pink.”

“I’m fine!” Amity’s voice was far louder than she’d intended and she clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Are you sure? That didn’t sound like you’re fine.” Leaning into Amity’s space, Luz squinted at her suspiciously. “You’re not hiding something from me, are you?”

“No! Of course not!” Amity stammered out, leaning back from Luz’s inquisitive gaze as her cheeks bloomed with a fresh heat. “I’m, uh, stressed after that fight.”

“That was a thing, wasn’t it?” Amity breathed a small sigh of relief that Luz was easily distracted. “We make a pretty good team, don’t we?”

“Excuse me, I’m the one who took down the thing.” The Owl Lady called out from behind them which Luz scoffed at.

“You needed our help though.”

“No I didn’t! I just felt like giving you two some extra experience.” The Owl Lady deflected, only for the small demon to pipe up.

“Nope! You were gonna get your butt kicked without these two!”

“And who was the one who got caught almost immediately and used as a bludgeon against me?” The two started arguing back and forth whilst Luz rolled her eyes and gave Amity a look, begging to be saved. With a small smile, Amity drew a small spell circle and flicked a flame at the demon, burning his bindings just enough that he was able to wiggle free.

“Yes! Ha ha! Nothing can stop the King of demons.” He crowed triumphantly before hopping out of Luz’s arms to go pester the Owl Lady.

“Thanks.” Luz murmured into Amity’s ear, forcing her to stifle a small squeak as the human’s breath ghost over its point. “I love those two to bits, but they can be a bit much sometimes.”

“I know the feeling.” Amity managed to stutter out, having no idea why she was feeling so twisted up all of a sudden. “Ed and Em can be like that too.”

“I’m surprised you’re willing to stick around with me too.” Luz scuffed her shoes against the ground as they continued through the forest. “I know I can be kinda high energy and tiring to be around.”

“I like spending time with you.” Amity wasn’t sure where her quick answer had come from, but it rang true. Beyond just her interest in Luz’s human magic, Amity genuinely enjoyed her presence in spite of, or maybe even because of, her peppy energy. “Even if it’s only been a day, I like being your ‘study buddy’.”

“You do?” Amity was fairly certain Luz’s face would break from how wide her smile was.

“Yes, I do.” With a loud squeal, Luz once again launched herself at Amity and wrapped her in a tight hug. “Ack, could you maybe tone down the hugs though?”

“Oh, sure, sorry.” Luz released her and stepped back bashfully as Amity turned away quickly to hide her growing blush. Why was she blushing so much?! They both fell silent as they continued to walk through the woods and eventually emerged into the small clearing where the Owl House stood.

“I should get going, I’ve got homework to do.” Amity hesitated for a moment, then stepped in to hug Luz briefly before quickly letting go and stepping back.

“Bye, Amity!” Luz chirped as Amity turned away and caught a glimpse of the Owl Lady watching them from the edge of the forest and mouthing something that looked suspiciously like the word ‘gay’.

Tactfully ignoring the older witch, Amity held her head high and marched off in the direction of Bonesborough and home.

* * *

Amity slipped quietly into the foyer, praying none of the servants or her parents were around to see her coming home so late. She wasn’t quite so lucky though, as a voice called out from the balcony.

“Hey, Mittens! Whatcha doing back so late?”

“Don’t you have anything better to do than just hang around here?” Amity sighed loudly, looking up at her twin siblings.

“Not really.” Em shrugged.

“We like it here.” Ed added, slumping lazily over the bannister and grinning down at Amity. “So what were you doing?”

“I was out for a walk.” Amity deflected, marching towards the stairs.

“Is that code for going out on a date with Luz?” Amity froze mid step and glared up at Em.

“I am not dating Luz. I’m not interested in her like that.”

“Sure you aren’t, Mittens.” Amity didn’t dignify that with a response and instead continued up the stairs and along the landing. She kept ignoring Ed and Em’s calls to her retreating back as her face burned again.

She let out a deep sigh of relief once she was safely ensconced in her room and away from her pestilential siblings. With a quiet groan, she fell back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. That was the second time today it had been suggested to her that she had a romantic interest in Luz. It was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!

“I don’t like Luz like that. I don’t!” Amity insisted to nobody but herself. “I just want to learn about her magic, that’s all.” It was a benefit that she enjoyed Luz’s presence and that her smile made her feel warm inside.

But she’d never felt that way about anyone else before though. The closest she’d felt to this was how she used to be with Willow, before she’d ruined everything. But that just meant she and Luz were just getting to be good friends. Really good friends. Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm ignoring my normal posting schedule with this fic because I enjoy it too much to artificially delay its posting. I do love it when everyone knows someone is into someone else but they themselves are completely oblivious to their own feelings. I'm a real sucker for that.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being so diligent. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and putting up with my squealing about how gay Amity is.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	3. Chapter 3

It was the weekend and Amity was spending her time as she usually did, studying. She’d been at it for what felt like hours now and the words in her textbook were starting to blur together. There was only so much one could read about alchemical solutions before they start to get mixed together into one unholy mixture that would form an equally unholy abomination.

Sighing deeply, Amity slumped back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling of her room. She wondered how Luz was coping with her far greater workload. She blinked a couple of times. Once again, her thoughts had drifted back to Luz, as they’d been doing with increasing frequency since the incident in the woods with the spider demon.

If she was a more charitable person, she might have been inclined to remember that her mind had been stuck on Luz for quite a while now. But since she wasn’t, it was all obviously Ed and Em’s fault, not to mention that Owl Lady and what she’d said.

It was just ridiculous of them to think she was interested in Luz like that. Amity had never even thought about anyone like that before. And besides that, Luz was human and a girl to boot. It would never work between them.

Amity paused in her train of thought for a moment. Why was Luz being a girl and human so much of a problem? She had once or twice heard her parents decry those who preferred the same gender, talking about how they were unable to properly carry on the family line. But at the same time, she knew for a fact both Ed and Em dated men and women in secret respectively.

Before, she’d been very disapproving of their choice in paramours. It had been yet another way the two had flouted their parents’ rules whilst still being thought of as the golden children who got all the talent. Now though, she wasn’t so sure how she felt. After the incident with Willow’s memories and showing her and Luz what her parents had told her, she’d been doing some re-evaluation of pretty much everything they’d told her.

Amity let out a frustrated groan and rubbed at her eyes. Introspection was so annoying. She’d been so full of doubt recently. Even though she hadn’t exactly been happy before Luz entered into her life, she’d at least been self-assured and knew what she had to do.

She was saved from any further navel gazing by a knock at her door. Getting up from the bed and smoothing out her clothes just in case it was her parents, Amity walked over to the door and opened it to reveal just Ed.

“Hey, Mittens, you’ve got a visitor.” He intoned, oddly subdued, but then again he was rarely happy when separated from his twin.

“Who? And don’t call me that.” Amity asked, opening up the door to check if the visitor had come up with him.

“She’s waiting for you in the sitting room.” Ed shrugged, not answering the question and instead meandering off, message delivered. After watching her brother for a few seconds as she puzzled over his odd behaviour, Amity shrugged and left her room to see who it was who’d come to see her.

It was probably Boscha or another of the popular girls her parents had forced her to befriend, for a loose definition of befriend, that is. Although it could be someone else, Boscha and the others rarely visited unless explicitly invited over, but Amity couldn’t think of anyone else who would willingly visit her.

Nobody except Luz, that is.

Oh no, it had better not be Luz. The thought of dear sweet Luz meeting her parents chilled Amity to the bone. Worry filling her chest, Amity broke into a swift walk, running was forbidden in Blight Manor, and took the stairs two at a time. Maybe if she was quick, she could get Luz out of the house before her parents noticed she was there. What was Ed even thinking, letting Luz into the house? He might be keen to flout the rules, but this could put Luz at risk too.

Slipping a little on the marble floor, Amity speed-walked over to the side of the foyer where the sitting room was and opened up the door. “Luz, you neeeee-.” Amity’s warning tailed off as she saw, in fact, it wasn’t Luz who had come to visit. The tall pale form of Lilith Clawthorne unfolded itself from one of the high backed chairs and looked over at Amity. “Miss Lilith! I wasn’t expecting you.”

“No, I’m sorry I didn’t send a message ahead.” The witch raised an eyebrow at her protégé. “But you seemed to be expecting someone else?”

“No, I wasn’t.” Amity lied, wincing as Lilith’s other eyebrow joined the other one.

“Oh, not this ‘Luz’, I feel like I’ve heard that name before…” Amity had to stifle a squeak of fear as Lilith tapped her chin thoughtfully.

“So what did you want to see me about, Miss Lilith?” Amity asked quickly, hoping to distract her mentor from putting the pieces together about Luz.

“Oh, well, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you, I wanted to check up on my most promising student.” Amity blinked in surprise. Lilith had never paid her a personal visit like this before, they had had a few one on one interactions at Hexside, but Amity had been avoiding those as of late. After that debacle of a witches’ duel at the Covention, Amity had sort of been avoiding Lilith.

“Well, I’m doing well in my studies. I’m still top of my class.” Amity allowed herself a small smirk of self-satisfaction as she remembered her exceptional performance on the last test, her spontaneous abominations were getting much better.

“That’s good to hear, but that’s not exactly what I meant…” Lilith sat back down in her chair and gestured for Amity to seat herself in the one opposite her which she did, small seeds of suspicion sprouting in her mind. The older witch steepled her fingers and fixed Amity with her piercing gaze.

“I’ve heard some… unfortunate rumours coming from some of the other students I’ve taken a personal interest in. Rumours that you’ve been… fraternising with certain subversive elements.”

“What?! No I haven’t!” Amity blurted out, painfully aware of how awful she was at lying.

“Amity, you are an excellent and hardworking witch, but you are an abysmal liar.” Lilith intoned in an oddly kind voice. “I know what it’s like to be young and easily led.”

“Easily led?”

“Oh, yes, my younger sister would so frequently be led astray.” Amity cocked her head in confusion.

“You have another sister?”

“Another? No, I just have the one, though I don’t like to talk about her all that much.” Lilith admitted reluctantly, confusing Amity even further.

“But I thought the Owl Lady was your older sister?” In an instant, Lilith’s expression morphed into a dark scowl.

“What.”

“I mean, she looks a lot older than you.” Amity flailed hastily, praying that Lilith didn’t probe any deeper into why she thought the Owl Lady was older.

“I suppose she does…” Lilith’s scowl had faded, but she still regarded Amity with some suspicion. “Anyway, you’re young, and I understand if maybe your heart leads you astray.”

“I still don’t know what you mean by that.” Amity frowned and Lilith sighed deeply.

“I know you and my sister’s human are… romantically entangled.”

“What!? No we aren’t!” Amity nearly fell out of her chair at the accusation. Not another person who seemed to think she and Luz were together. “I barely even know her! Other than that duel at the Covention, where she cheated.” She fixed Lilith with a glare. She hadn’t forgotten how the older witch had basically used her as a pawn in her conflict and forced her to cheat.

“Amity dear, what was it I just said about you being a bad liar?” Amity didn’t know how Lilith was able to sound so painfully disappointed in her, and she shrank back into her chair as the older witch continued. “Now, under normal circumstances, this might be considered a problem, but I think it could be an opportunity instead.”

Amity did not like the sound of that, but she listened intently anyway. “How so?”

“As I’m sure you’re aware, the Emperor has placed the highest ever bounty on my sister, but she has been able to evade capture for many years now. However, I believe now she has a weakness that could be used against her.”

“Luz.” Amity murmured, starting to put the pieces together.

“I thought I’d heard the name before.” Lilith smirked thoughtfully. “Luz, yes, the human my sister has taken in and is teaching magic to, in flagrant disregard for the laws of the land.”

“And what? You want me to use this relationship you think I have with Luz to help you capture the Owl Lady, is that it?”

“In as many words.” Lilith smiled, clearly pleased with how quick on the uptake her student was.

“But…” Amity frowned, several conflicting thoughts flitting around her head, but the primary one was an odd feeling of nausea. “Why?”

“Because it will be mutually beneficial to us.” Shaking her head in disappointment, Lilith stood up and walked over to stand in front of the fireplace. “I get to complete my remit, and as a reward for your assistance, as head of the Emperor’s Coven, I can ensure you will be offered membership.”

Amity stayed silent, unsure what to think. Guaranteed access to the Emperor’s Coven? It was everything she’d been working towards for the last few years, she should be thrilled at the chance. But… something about it didn’t feel right.

“I don’t know.” She finally spoke, refusing to look up at Lilith.

“Whyever not, Amity?” Lilith turned to look back at Amity, her eyebrow raised once again. “I thought you wanted to join the Emperor’s Coven more than anything?”

“I do…” Amity shuffled uncomfortably in her chair. The Owl Lady was a notorious criminal who probably should be taken in, but using Luz to do that and betraying her trust felt anathemic. It was hard to put into words, and she wasn’t sure she really should either, what with Lilith thinking she and Luz had some sort of relationship beyond a simple friendship and academic interest.

“Well then, what’s the problem?”

“It feels wrong to trick them like that.” Amity shrugged, hoping that would satisfy Lilith.

“It’s for their own good and the good of all of the isles. My sister is a rogue element who needs to be stopped for her own protection. And as for the human, she doesn’t belong here on the Boiling Isles.” Lilith explained patiently, as though to a young child. “Amity, dear, it almost sounds as though you don’t want them to get caught.”

“I do!” Amity grinned nervously, hoping that it came across as genuine. “I just don’t think this is the best way to do it and I don’t feel comfortable doing it.”

“Oh? And why not?”

“It…” Amity cast around for a convincing reason. “It would be like cheating.”

“I don’t follow.”

“You’re offering me a place in the Emperor’s Coven without me needing to prove myself as a witch. That’s cheating, and I don’t want a part of it.” Amity breathed a quiet sigh of relief as a guilty frown crossed Lilith’s face.

“I mean, you don’t have to be rewarded with a position in the Coven if you don’t want it.” The older witch offered, but Amity shook her head.

“I do want it, but even if you rescind your offer now, if I go through with this and deliver your sister to you and later get a place in the Coven, how will I know I got in on my own merits?” Amity raised her own eyebrow at Lilith, who seemed to be struggling for a way to persuade Amity into joining her plan. After about a minute of silence though, Lilith hung her head in defeat.

“I understand. I do hope you’ll come around soon, but I can see you’re still blinded by your heart on these matters, I can’t say I’m completely objective either.” Lilith sighed deeply and made her way to the door leading to the foyer. She paused with her hand resting on the door handle and looked back at Amity, who had stood up to watch her mentor go.

“The day may come where you have to choose a side, Amity, make sure you choose the right one.” She told the young witch before sweeping out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her. Amity was able to maintain her composure for a few moments before she collapsed back into her chair, breathing hard.

That had not been fun, and was definitely up there with the time her parents had caught her playing in the mud in the garden as one of the most stressful moments of her life. Groaning, Amity rubbed at her temples in exhaustion. Why did things have to be so hard? And why did yet another person seem to think she had a crush on Luz?

It was so confusing. One was an isolated incident, two was a coincidence, Ed and Em counted as one, since they were usually of one mind, but three? Three meant there was probably something to it. Except Amity was sure there wasn’t, she didn’t even know what it felt like to have a crush on someone.

Maybe if she knew what it was like, then she could accurately determine why everyone else was wrong, but who could she ask? Her question had been intended to be rhetorical, but the universe answered it in the form of the door to the room opening and a head poking in.

“Mittens? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Em.” Amity leaned over the arm of the chair to look at her elder sister. “Where’s Ed?”

“He’s not feeling too great and wants to be alone. You know he doesn’t like Lilith. In fact, she weirds me out too.” Em entered the room fully, closing the door behind her and approaching Amity. “So, what did tall, pale and humourless want?”

Amity considered fobbing Em off with some trite answer about Lilith wanting to check up on her, but she was too tired to play that game now. “She wanted me to use my friendship with Luz to help her capture the Owl Lady.”

“And what did you say?” Em walked around the chair Amity was still sitting in and grabbed a nearby foot stool, pulling it in front of the chair and sitting down in front of her sister.

“I told her no because she was offering me a position in the Emperor’s Coven for it. If I’m going to join the Emperor’s Coven, it will be because I am a powerful witch, not because I had some strings pulled.”

“I see…” Em hummed thoughtfully, not looking away from Amity. “Was that the only reason?”

Amity hesitated for a moment before answering. “No, it wasn’t.” She shuffled in her seat, struggling to put it into words. “It just felt… wrong to do that to Luz. To betray her trust like that.”

“And yet you happily snitched on me and Ed whenever you could. Even if it never worked.” Em pointed out, a hint of bitterness in her voice.

“Exactly! So I don’t know why it matters so much now.” Amity threw her hands up in the air in frustration. “I’m just so confused, and it doesn’t help that everyone seems to think I’m Luz’s girlfriend or whatever.”

“Everyone?” Em raised an eyebrow and Amity flushed a little.

“Lilith also thought I was dating Luz. She thought I could use my relationship with her to gain her trust more or something.” Amity sulked, pulling her feet up onto the chair in flagrant violation of the ‘no shoes on the furniture’ rule.

“Except you don’t have a relationship like that with Luz.”

“And I don’t know why everyone seems to think I do!” She wanted to get up and start pacing the room, but she stayed put in her seat, burying her face in her legs. “I don’t even know what liking someone like that is supposed to feel like.”

“Well, in my experience it feels kinda warm and fuzzy in your bile sac.” Em shrugged nonchalantly. “At least that’s the feeling I get whenever I see a cute girl I wanna date.” That sounded suspiciously and worryingly familiar, so Amity probed further.

“And like a sort of tingling whenever you touch them?”

“Sometimes. Mostly it’s just being happy in their company I think and wanting to spend time with them and make them happy.” Em gave Amity one of her lopsided grins. “Though I wouldn’t exactly call myself an expert in these matters.” Amity, meanwhile, was starting to feel a panic starting to well up inside her.

“But, that could just mean I’m good friends with her, right?” She was desperately clutching at straws here as Em shrugged again.

“Well maybe, there is one other test that might help.”

“What?”

“Imagine yourself kissing Luz.”

“What!?” Amity screeched, trying to wipe the thought from her mind, but it was too late. Her imagination filled in a surprisingly detailed scene of her and Luz tucked away in one of the forgotten areas of Hexside, gently kissing one another.

It felt like something was stuck in Amity’s throat, but she couldn’t get rid of the incessant choking feeling. She’d  _ liked _ the thought of kissing Luz, she really wanted to kiss her now too to see if the fantasy matched up to reality.

“I like Luz.” She squeaked before pressing her face into her legs once again. Saying it made it even more real somehow and Amity could feel her face burning as Em started chuckling.

“Awww, you finally caught up with the rest of us, Mittens.” Em sounded incredibly smug, and Amity looked up to glare at her as best she could.

“What do I do?” She hissed, eyes pleading with her older sister to help her.

“Well, you could ask her out on a date.” Em suggested with an impish smile.

“That is not a helpful suggestion.” Burying her face in her hands, Amity let out a long-suffering groan. She really shouldn’t have expected anything else from her sister.

“Mittens, it’s really not that hard. You like Luz and Luz likes you, so you ask her out on a date and you go be cute together.” Amity felt like screaming at her sister, who clearly had no idea of how much of a problem this was.

“I can’t like her, I have studies, I’m supposed to join the Emperor’s Coven! And anyway, she doesn’t like me like that. We’re just friends, like her and Willow are.”

Em let out a long-suffering sigh before reaching out to pat Amity on the knee. “Look, Mittens, I think you’re making this out to be way more of a problem than it really is. But I’ve already given you my advice and it’s not gonna change, so you have fun reconciling your feelings with that messed up mentality Mom and Dad instilled in you.”

With that, Em got up from the footstool and wandered off. Amity didn’t watch her go, but she heard the heavy door to the foyer open and close behind her. Left alone with only her thoughts, Amity continued to wallow in her morass of negativity. Why couldn’t things just be simple for once?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, after that episode, I think we could all do with something light, like angsting about being gay! I have a lot of writing to do to catch up with the show, but on the plus side I've got lots of fun material to work with now. 
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being awesome. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and listening to my excited screams.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	4. Chapter 4

To say Amity was anxious the next day at school would be an understatement. After several hours of nervous self-reflection following her realisation of her crush on Luz, Amity was not looking forward to running into the girl. Whilst she didn’t share many classes with her, Luz had unilaterally decided to be Amity’s partner for those classes. This wasn’t even taking into account their planned extracurricular activities.

Amity came to a screeching halt in the middle of the path leading up to school. She hadn’t thought about that. She’d been so wrapped up in coming to terms with her burgeoning attraction to Luz and how best to evade her at school, she’d completely forgotten about the time they intended to spend together after school, working on Luz’s magic.

What was she going to do? She couldn’t just break her agreement with Luz, especially not so soon after she’d made the arrangement. But she wasn’t sure she could spend an entire afternoon with Luz without letting something slip, and that would be the worst. They were supposed to be friends. If Luz found out… Amity shuddered to think, but at the very least she was sure it would lead to Luz breaking off their friendship and rejecting her.

“Hey, Amity, you okay there?” Amity let out an uncharacteristic yelp and leaped back hand raised to cast a fireball at her attacker, though she quickly lowered her hand when she realised it was Luz.

“Oh, Luz, you scared me.” Amity huffed, trying to ignore the warm and fuzzy feeling in her bile sac at Luz’s presence.

“Sorry, Amity, you seemed kinda spaced out there.” Amity tilted her head in confusion.

“But I’m still here, not in space.”

“Never mind. You are okay though, right?” Amity nodded and Luz lit up, bouncing happily on the spot. “Great! We are still on for this afternoon too, right?”

“Yes, we are.” Amity reluctantly agreed, though her misgivings were alleviated somewhat by the gleeful expression on Luz’s face as she flapped her hands excitedly.

“Yes! I can’t wait. Oh, it’s time for class now, though. See you at lunch!” With a jaunty wave, Luz took off, leaving Amity in her wake as she wondered where Luz got her energy from.

“Wow, Mittens, you’ve got it bad.” This time Amity did cast a fireball as she recognised the voice. Ed easily dodged the small flame and pouted at her as he leaned on Em’s shoulder. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“I’ve been told enough times that Blights aren’t supposed to be nice people.” Amity fired back irritably, her reasonably good mood at having spoken to Luz fading fast at her brother’s teasing. “What do you want?”

“Just came over to say hi to our little sis and see how she was getting on with her adorable first crush.” Em answered, smirking at Amity who scowled back.

“Well, you’ve said hi, now leave me alone.” With another sharp glare, Amity turned on her heel and marched off. She ignored the giggling from her siblings behind her and held her head high as she walked through the main doors and made her way to her locker.

As she approached it, however, her mood was soured even further by a familiar yellow-uniformed student. “There you are, Amity. For a moment I thought you weren’t coming today.”

“Hi, Boscha.” Amity muttered, trying and failing to muster any sort of enthusiasm for the greeting. The pink haired girl narrowed all three eyes at Amity suspiciously.

“You don’t seem all that happy to see your best friend.” Amity had to resist the urge to roll her eyes at Boscha’s self-description. She was better friends with Willow than with Boscha, even when she’d been mean and stopped being her friend.

“I’m just tired. Lots of work.” Amity lied, and thankfully Boscha didn’t seem to be nearly as astute as Lilith.

“Ugh, tell me about it. I got so much homework and Hierus wasn’t around to do it for me.” Boscha grumbled as Amity took her books from her locker and started to walk to her first class. “And I’ve got history first. I hate history.”

“Mhmm.” Amity hummed distractedly. Her attention had been pulled away from Boscha’s complaining by Luz jogging ahead of them and chattering with Willow. For a brief moment, she felt a twinge of jealousy that Willow could be so openly close to Luz whilst she was stuck with stuck-up Boscha and her posse.

Come to think of it, they were  _ very  _ close, something only confirmed by Luz wrapping an arm around Willow’s neck as she cheered about something. If Luz did have feelings for someone, it would only make sense for it to be Willow. She was a strong witch, a lot stronger than Amity ever could be no matter how hard she worked, not to mention Willow was a  _ lot  _ nicer than she was and had been friends with Luz for longer.

“Are you even listening to me?” Boscha asked sharply, dragging Amity’s attention away from thoughts of Luz and back down to the Isles.

“Of course I am.” Amity lied, and before Boscha could call her out on it, they arrived at Amity’s classroom. “This is me, see you later.” Amity quickly darted into the room and settled at her desk, breathing a sigh of relief. Arranging her books, Amity opened up her textbook and prepared for the day of lessons.

* * *

Strangely, nothing out of the ordinary happened that day, although Amity did notice through the window Luz chasing after a strange fiery thing at lunch, but that was pretty standard by now. Frankly, it would be a weird day if Luz  _ didn’t _ get into some kind of shenanigans, but at least this time it seemed to be something minor and not something like a magic-stealing basilisk.

Amity was waiting anxiously near the main doors for Luz to arrive, looking around nervously in case Lilith or someone else noticed her. Unfortunately, her attempt to remain unseen was thwarted by two persistent thorns in her side.

“Hey, Mittens, whatcha doin’?” Amity groaned loudly and turned to face her irritated siblings.

“None of your business.” She snapped primly, hoping against hope they’d respect her privacy for once. Sadly, she had no such luck.

“Awwww, you’re so mean, Mittens. We were just going to invite you to come to the market with us.” Em pouted at Amity, who continued to scowl at them.

“Well I’m busy this afternoon, so I’m afraid I can’t come with you.”

“Busy with what?” Ed wheedled, fluttering his eyelashes in a ridiculous display.

“I already told you, it’s none of your busi-.”

“Amity!” She winced at the call and turned to face Luz as she came running over with Willow and her other friend in tow.

“Oh, Mittens.” Em sighed in mock disappointment from behind Amity. “Are you really going to keep doing this to yourself?”

“Shut up!” She hissed back out of the corner of her mouth before giving Luz a bright smile as she and her other friends approached.

“Oh! Hi, Ed, hi, Em! What are you two doing here?” Luz asked the two cheerfully, not noticing Amity shaking her head as subtly as she could.

“Hi, cutie, we were just asking Amity if she wanted to come to the market with us.” Amity didn’t need to look behind her to see the smugly charming smile on her sister’s face. Besides, she was too busy staring in shock at the slight blush on Luz’s face. It cleared up quickly though, as Luz didn’t seem to realise the trap that had been laid for them both and chirped back.

“Oh, that’s nice, but Amity and I are busy doing something together this afternoon.”

“Oh, are you?” Amity nearly winced at the exaggerated surprise in Ed’s voice, nor was she too thrilled with how Willow and Luz’s other friend were looking at her with mild suspicion. “Well, since you got her first, you two have fun!”

“Yep! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Mittens!” Em ruffled her sister’s hair, much to her chagrin, and Amity shot the retreating twins’ backs a glare. She could only imagine how annoying they would be when she returned home later.

“Welp, I’ll see you guys tomorrow!” Luz hugged her friends tightly before giving them a jaunty wave as she grabbed Amity’s hand and pulled her towards Bonesborough. “So, I figured today we could go down to the beach and look for more symbols. I bet there’s all sorts there!”

Amity nodded dumbly, painfully aware of how her cheeks were burning from just touching Luz. She hated to admit it, but Ed and Em were right, she had it really bad for the chipper human.

“So how was school?” Amity asked, desperately trying to keep her cool.

“It was great! I had oracle class today and we were learning how to use all sorts of mundane stuff to foretell the future, like fire and stuff.” Smiling at Luz’s excited babbling, Amity was very glad that she’d made friends with someone as passionate about magic as she was. “But then we tried to do lactomancy, which didn’t go so well since I’m lactose intolerant and we were supposed to drink it, and you don’t need magic to know what’ll happen after I do that. So I ‘accidentally’ knocked it over, and the teacher asked what happened, so I told him it was no use scrying over spilt milk!”

Luz paused expectantly whilst Amity just looked at her in total confusion. Of course you don’t use spilt milk to scry, there would be all sorts of dirt and impurities that would cloud the vision. Not to mention you’d have to try and drink it from the ground, which was just disgusting.

Now that she thought about it though, this did raise a few questions, and Amity wasn’t quite sure how to ask them without sounding incredibly rude. She was so busy trying to formulate her question, she nearly missed Luz’s sigh of disappointment.

“Awww, you didn’t laugh at my joke…” Amity blinked a couple of times.

“Wait, that was a joke?” She squeaked in fear, she’d managed to upset Luz and now she’d hate her and stop being her friend!

“Yeah, I guess humour’s a little different here than back on Earth, huh?”

“It is a little, yeah.” Chuckling nervously, Amity breathed a small sigh of relief that she seemed to have avoided too much awkwardness with Luz.

“Well, I guess I’ll have to learn Boiling Isles comedy, then, because I’m gonna make you laugh.” Luz smiled cheerfully and Amity felt her cheeks heat up one more. This human was going to be the death of her if she wasn’t careful.

The pair walked through Bonesborough, Luz pausing occasionally to look at some passerby or something that caught her interest. It seemed that despite having spent more than a month here, she was still endlessly fascinated by the Isles. Amity couldn’t really blame her either, she’d probably be the same if she were to go to Earth.

Luz didn’t talk much about her home, probably because she missed it there and talking about it would remind her of it. Either that or she found the Isles far more interesting to talk about. She had mentioned her ‘mamá’ a couple of times, whatever that was. Luz definitely seemed to miss it though.

Amity did wonder on occasion what it would be like to visit Earth with Luz. The human artifacts Luz had brought with her were so very strange and intriguing, and if there was one thing Amity loved, it was learning.

But that was something for another time, if ever. The two students were leaving Bonesborough by now and slowly winding their way down to one of the many nearby beaches. Most people didn’t go down to the beach, which was something of a relief to Amity. After her meeting with Lilith, she was a little uncertain of how safe Luz was out and about.

“So, how exactly do you find these glyph things then?” She asked curiously as they crunched along the sandy shore, watching small waves wash against it.

“Well, they appear in nature, so I guess we start looking at natural things.” Luz shrugged before ducking down to examine a piece of driftwood. Amity wasn’t going to get a much better lead-in to her new concern about Luz’s attempts to learn magic.

“Luz, I was just wondering…” She started, scuffing her foot uneasily in the sand.

“Yeah?”

“When you were talking about oracle class, how can you use magic like that? You say your glyphs appear in nature, so then how can you perform magic for things that, well, don’t?” Luz remained crouched over for a little while then straightened up, but didn’t turn to face Amity.

“Honestly? I don’t know. You’re right, if I can’t find the glyph, then I can’t do the magic, and if it doesn’t exist in nature, then I won’t be able to do it.” Luz paused for a second and gave a loud sniff. “I know there’s only so much theory I can learn, and I know there’s this limit on what I can do. But I am still going to become the best witch I can.” Luz turned back to look at Amity, her eyes a little wet. “Because that’s what I want to be.”

“I’ll help.” Amity blurted out, guilt bubbling in her chest at having upset Luz by bringing this up. “I already agreed to. We’ll find a way for you to learn other forms of magic, I promise.”

“You will?”

“I already promised?” Amity shrugged before suddenly having the breath knocked out of her by Luz tackling her in the midriff with a hug, sending them both crashing to the ground.

“Thank you, Amity!” The poor witch was sure her face would burst into flame with how hot it felt. “You’re the best study buddy a girl could have!”

“I’m really not.” Amity mumbled, praying that Luz didn’t look up and see how red her face must be.

“Yes, you are! Eda’s great and all, but she’s not really into the whole studying stuff kinda thing. She likes to teach by example and getting out there and doing stuff, which is great and I love it, but there’s other ways to learn new things, ya know?” Amity hummed in agreement, willing her face to return to its normal colour. She chanced a glance down at Luz and was struck by how fluffy and soft the human’s hair looked, nothing like her own forcibly tamed and dyed locks, and this was definitely not helping her stop blushing.

It felt like they remained like that for far far too long, not that Amity was complaining all that much. But eventually, Luz had to release the hug, rocking back on her heels to look at Amity properly. “So, shall we keep looking, study buddy?”

“O-Okay.” Amity stammered out, getting to her feet and wondering why Luz wasn’t commenting on her still rather warm face.

“Great! Oh! Maybe I’ll be able to see something in the waves!” Without waiting, Luz took off at a run to the water’s edge, where she proceeded to crouch down and stare intently at the foam.

Amity got up much slower and walked over to join Luz, brushing herself off as she went. Luz seemed to have boundless energy, and Amity wondered if that was a human thing in order to compensate for their lack of magic. Maybe she should look into that and other human things. If she was going to be Luz’s friend, she should know more about her kind.

Making a mental note to look into the Human Appreciation Society she’d heard a little about, Amity settled into a crouch a little ways behind Luz and joined her in staring at the water. She wasn’t entirely sure what she personally could accomplish, she’d never even seen these glyphs before Luz had shown them to her. Then again, she hadn’t looked before.

The rhythmic crashing of the waves against the sand started to lull Amity into a stupor and she found her gaze slowly drifting over to Luz. Her half-cape and hood rustled in the sea breeze and ruffled her hair, and Amity wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen Luz concentrate this hard on anything before.

Quite frankly, she looked adorable, her forehead scrunched in concentration and her eyes narrowed at the water, trying to discern something in the surf. Every so often, Luz’s tongue would poke out as she would absently reach out with a hand and trace something that only she seemed to be able to see.

As Amity’s thoughts drifted and she watched Luz’s tongue, she wondered what it would feel like in her mouth, in one of those deep and passionate kisses she read about in Good Witch Azura. It took a few moments for Amity’s sluggish mind to catch up with itself and she let out a small squeak when she realised what she’d been thinking about.

“Amity?” Luz had turned around at the squeak and was giving Amity a curious look.

“It’s nothing.” Amity reassured her friend, certain that Luz could not miss her luminescent blush.

“You sure? Are you hot? Because you look very red.”

“I’m fine.” Amity’s voice jumped up an octave as Luz did indeed notice, though thankfully she didn’t seem to have worked out that she was the cause of Amity’s condition and not the heat.

“Okay! I think I’ve almost got this, I just need a little bit more time.” Luz returned to watching the water and Amity breathed a small sigh of relief. That had been far too close for her liking. Amity was now starting to doubt her ability to keep her crush on Luz a secret. But she couldn’t break her promise, especially not now that she’d foolishly made yet another one.

It had probably been a bad idea to promise Luz that they’d find some way for her to harness unnatural magic, but it had definitely been worth it just for the hug she got. All she had to do was work out how a hitherto unknown form of magic worked, how it had developed into the current usage of magic and do it all without Luz finding out that she had feelings for her.

“I am so doomed.” She muttered under her breath as she watched Luz continue with her small drawings in the sand. At least she had Luz with her though, and right now, that was all that mattered. Quietly, she shuffled over to crouch beside Luz and followed her gaze. Amity tentatively leaned into Luz’s side and was incredibly happy when she didn’t shy away and instead leaned back against her.

She could do this. Everything was going to be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kinda just writing chapters of this whenever and posting them approximately whenever I feel like it instead of inserting them into my schedule. Why? Because I feel like it and I like this story a lot and delaying its publishing would be counter-productive. Anyway, gay mess Amity is a joy to write and I love her and Luz. Also happy stim Luz is a headcanon I will take to the grave because it's the best.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being the best at grammar, far far better than I am. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and indulging my strangeness.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	5. Chapter 5

Everything was not fine.

Amity had gone out with Luz, not  _ gone out  _ as in dating, of course, but just as ‘study buddies’, every afternoon for the last week in search of more of Luz’s glyphs. Sadly, they’d had no luck, and even perpetually chipper Luz was starting to get a little down about it.

Even with this lack of success, Amity was still happy she was able to spend time with Luz, though she was fairly certain it would lead her to an early grave. Any of her initial worries about Luz and Willow being together because of how touchy they were had been assuaged with the knowledge that Luz was that touchy with  _ everyone _ .

This proved to be a double-edged sword though, in that, although the part of her that openly accepted her feelings for Luz was overjoyed that she still had a chance with her, the rest was more concerned that she might let something slip during one of Luz’s many crushing hugs.

Currently, Amity was slumped at her desk, having begged off another afternoon with Luz by claiming she had difficult homework to do. She didn’t really, it was painfully easy, but she needed to take some time to herself to recuperate.

She really had no idea what she was going to do about this crush of hers. It felt like she’d eaten a plate of demon grubs and they were wriggling around in her stomachs whenever Luz did, well, anything. She had no right being this cute.

Amity had wondered if it was a human thing, after all, she’d never felt like this around any of the natives of the Isles. Maybe humans had some kind of pheromone thing that made them incredibly attractive.

Of course, for her to confirm that, she would need to learn about humans. Sitting up, Amity looked over at her bookshelf and all her books. All of them were non-fiction and educational in some way. She kept all her fiction books in her hideyhole in the library, including her precious Good Witch Azura collection.

Getting up, Amity walked over to the bookshelf to examine the titles more closely. She was fairly certain she had at least one book about the other realms. “Vexing Hexing, How to Train Your Abomination, Alchemical Assertions…” She mumbled to herself as she scanned over the books, running a finger along their spines.

After browsing for a little while and getting distracted by a book on palismans, Amity finally found the book she was looking for. Pulling it off the shelf, Amity returned to her desk and flipped it open to the section on Earth and its inhabitants. It was only a couple of pages and rather unhelpfully, the first page just had the words 'mostly harmless’, written in bold and neatly underlined.

Rolling her eyes, Amity flipped to the next pages and eagerly read the sparse description. As it turned out, the rest of the section was unhelpful, too as it seemed more concerned with the presence of the giraffes on Earth and how it was used in the before times as a place of exile due to the lack of magic there.

It took amity a few moments for that to properly sink in. No magic, as in none at all. No wonder Humans couldn’t do magic at all. It did also bring up the question of whether anyone could do magic on Earth. But that was a question for another day, Amity was here to learn about humans and the possibility that they exuded these pheromones that made them unreasonably attractive.

There was only one paragraph about humans, establishing them as the fourth most intelligent species in the realm, the giraffes just about edged them out. Only there was nothing on their biology, just a brief mention of their overcompensation for their lack of magic and propensity for creating strange and fascinating artifacts to mimic it.

Groaning loudly, Amity got up from her desk and flopped face first onto her bed. She was going to have to find some other source to find out about how humans worked. She’d probably have to go to the library, or perhaps that Human Appreciation Society at school.

As she continued to think about her next move, her face still buried in her pillow, there was a knock at her room door. She didn’t bother having to ask to know who it was, her parents wouldn’t bother knocking and would just walk right in.

“Go away, Ed and/or Em.” She grumbled, her voice muffled by the pillow, which proved to be a mistake as she heard her door open.

“Hey, Mittens. No date with Luz today?” Ed asked and Amity felt her mattress sink as he presumably sat down behind her.

“I told you to go away, and we aren’t dating.” Amity muttered irritably, but her brother didn’t leave.

“Did you? I heard come in, didn’t you, Em?”

“That’s what I heard as well.” Em chipped in from elsewhere in the room.

“Haven’t you got better things to do other than annoying me?”

“We’re only trying to fulfill our duties as responsible older siblings to make up for our poor prior behaviour.” Ed said in a mock wounded tone, gleefully ignoring Amity’s loud groan. “Especially now that you’ve joined us in the ranks of the rebellious Blights.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Dearest Mittens, you’re hanging out with the cutie. Not only that, you have feelings for her, and she’s currently apprenticed to the most wanted criminal in all the Isles. If that’s not rebellion, I don’t know what is.” Amity suppressed a growl when she heard Em refer to Luz as cutie, but it would provide some evidence for her pheromones theory if Em was also attracted to Luz. “And what’s this? You’re even doing research on her species.”

That made Amity bolt upright and look over at her desk, where Em was busy reading through the book Amity had left lying open. “That’s none of your business!” She snapped, trying and failing to get up and confiscate the book back.

“Oh dear, Mittens, you must have it bad if you’re resorting to using a book to look up Humans.” Em continued to tease, holding the book up and out of Amity’s reach.

“Look, I’ve admitted I have a crush on Luz, what more do you want?”

“We want to help you, Mittens, but we can’t do that if we don’t know what you’re trying to do.” Ed got to his feet and joined his twin sister, leaning on her shoulder casually and smirking at his younger sister.

“And I say it’s none of your business.” Amity jumped fruitlessly to retrieve her book. It was hers! “You’ve been mean and bullied me for years. Why would I want your help now?”

Ed and Em exchanged a look, doing their annoying twin thing before looking back down at Amity. “Well, you’re not wrong, we haven’t exactly been the best older siblings.”

“Which is why we want to make up for it now. We helped you with learning that spell back on the Knee, didn’t we?”

“Yes… but one good thing doesn’t make up for a whole childhood of bullying.” Amity crossed her arms, giving up on retrieving her book. “And you’re still being  _ you  _ even if you’re trying to help me.”

Both twins sighed loudly and gave each other another look before Em handed Amity back her book. Snatching it back, Amity held it close to her chest, still looking at her siblings suspiciously. “Okay, you’ve got your book back. Now will you talk to us?”

“Alright…” Amity walked over to her bookshelf and replaced the book before turning back to face her siblings. “Fine, I was researching humans because I think they have pheromones and that’s why I’ve got a crush on Luz.”

Ed and Em exchanged yet another look, which was really starting to get on Amity’s nerves now before Ed spoke. “I’m… not sure that’s a human thing.”

“Well, it has to be, I’ve never felt this way about anyone else, so the obvious conclusion is that it has something to do with her being human.”

“Or, maybe you like her personality, how she treats you and that you think she’s cute, and it has nothing to do with pheromones.” Em suggested, rolling her eyes, but Amity shook her head.

“Do either of you actually know whether or not humans have pheromones?” Both twins shook their heads and Amity grinned triumphantly. “Exactly, and since none of us know for sure, it remains a valid hypothesis.”

“If you say so…”

“I do, and even if it is a false hypothesis, knowing more about Luz’s biology and humans in general can only be a good thing. Who knows what they do?” Several terrifying thoughts suddenly crossed Amity’s mind. “What if they have some kind of strange mating habits? What if female humans do that thing where they eat their mate’s head!?” A hundred and one other horrifying ideas came to her and she started to panic. “I don’t want Luz to eat my head!”

“She’s not going to eat your head, Mittens.” Em sighed deeply, rubbing her temples in exasperation. “Look, instead of just worrying about it, just go and find out more about humans.”

“That’s what I was trying to do before you interrupted me.” Amity pointed out irritably, still in fear for her head. “I don’t suppose you have any idea where I could find any information?”

“Well… I would have suggested the Human Appreciation Society, but they’re under new leadership, and from what we’ve heard, he knows nothing about humans.”

“And you know this how?”

“We pride ourselves on being up to date on all the goings on at Hexside.” Em explained smugly, examining her nails nonchalantly.

“So if the Human Appreciation Society is out, then what do you suggest?” Amity asked, getting rather frustrated with her siblings’ roundabout way of explaining things. Why couldn’t people be direct? Luz managed it most of the time, even if she went on tangents, at least she was direct with them.

“You could try Gus. He’s the ex-president of the society  _ and  _ he’s Luz’s friend. If there was a human expert on the Isles, it would probably be him.” Amity had been reasonably on board with this idea, at least up until the part where Ed had said that this Gus was Luz’s friend.

“That sounds like a terrible idea. What if he tells Luz I was asking about her?”

“And that would be a bad thing because…?”

“Then she might ask why I was asking, and I don’t want her to know how I feel, not yet anyway. And would you two stop that?” Amity snapped as the twins did their thing again but quickly looked away from each other at her request.

“Well, don’t wait too long, or someone else might snap the cutie up before you do.” Em smiled a little too widely for it to be reassuring and Amity glared at her.

“If you ask out Luz even though you know I like her, Em. I swear…”

“It was just a suggestion, Mittens.” Em held up her hands in surrender though her grin did not lessen. “No need to threaten me.”

“Hmmph.” Amity folded her arms and looked away, trying to ignore the growing heat in her cheeks. “I suppose if I haven’t got any other option, I’ll have to risk talking to Luz’s friend.”

“Attagirl, Mittens. We believe in you.” Amity wondered whether the twins’ mouths ever got tired of holding their almost constant mischievous smirks.

“Keep it up and you’ll be asking Luz to Grom in no time.” Em added, tapping her chin in thought. “Now, there’s a thought. Grom’s less than two weeks away, you could ask her.”

“Nope, not happening, nope.” Amity protested as she shook her vigorously. Walking over to her older siblings, she grabbed by the sleeves and pushed and pulled them out of her room. “Thank you for all your help, goodbye.” With a final shove, Amity pushed the twins out of her room and shut the door with a slam.

Breathing out a loud sigh, Amity let herself collapse against the door and slowly slid down it. If she were to consider dating Luz, and that was currently a pretty big if, given Amity was still pretty unsure about whether her head would remain attached to the rest of her, asking Luz to Grom of all things was definitely a bad idea.

Grom was one of, if not the, romantic highlight of the Hexside year, a rather odd choice given what actually happened at Grom. Asking Luz to be her date to  _ that _ and as a first date too would be far far too much pressure. She’d be rejected for sure.

Groaning loudly, Amity buried her face in her hands. Just the mere thought of Luz rejecting her was enough to send uncomfortable shivers down her spine. She’d be a laughingstock and lose her friendship with Luz.

Why did things have to be so complicated? It felt like a perfect storm of obstacles in the way of her and her feelings. Her status as a Blight, her aspirations, who and what Luz was and who she associated with.

Realizing she probably wasn’t going to get any more work done today, Amity got up from the floor to walk the few steps to her bed and collapsed on it. Tomorrow she’d see about talking to Gus the Human expert, but for now, she was just going to rest.

* * *

The next day at school found Amity hiding just outside the lunch room, peering around the door at Luz and her two friends. It had taken her a while to shake Boscha and the others, but now all she had to do was wait. Luz was talking excitedly to Willow in her usual animated way whilst the friend Amity now knew as Gus shovelled his food into his mouth with a disturbing lack of manners.

Observing the young boy, Amity was starting to have doubts about his competency and knowledge of humans, but she was willing to give pretty much anything a shot if it meant she got to keep her head. Thankfully, Gus seemed to be in a hurry for something as he gulped down the last of his food and said his goodbyes to Luz and Willow.

Amity waited and just as he crossed the threshold into the corridor, she pounced.

“Waaargh!” He yelped in a mildly amusing way as Amity grabbed him by the hood and pulled him away from the room as quickly as she could. “Amity?!”

“I need your help.” She told him, releasing her grip and doing her best to tower over him intimidatingly. She wasn’t fond of this sort of thing, but she couldn’t deny that it was rather good at getting results.

“With what?” The boy asked nervously, his eyes flicking from side to side.

“I need to know everything about humans.”

“...What?”

“Was that too broad? More specifically I need to know about their mating habits.” Amity explained, looking up and the corridor herself just in case Luz was to suddenly appear. “Also I don’t want Luz to know I was asking.”

“Wait, but why?” Amity had to restrain herself from sighing in irritation.

“Okay, even simpler, two questions. One: Do humans produce pheromones? And two: Do they bite off their mate’s heads?”

“Oh, um, one: no, I’m pretty sure they don’t. That would be useless, since they don’t have a sense of smell. And two: I have seen some evidence of humans biting their mate’s necks, but never removing the head fully.”

That did not exactly inspire confidence, but it did satisfy Amity enough for her to stop menacing over Gus. “I see. Is there anything else you can tell me about humans?”

“Uh, there’s this thing they can do where they can remove their thumbs, but only their thumbs. They only have one stomach, and contrary to popular belief, they don’t have gills.” The boy rattled off, but his facts weren’t exactly what Amity was looking for.

“Weren’t you listening? I wanted to know about their mating habits.” She grumbled.

“They aren’t animals, Amity. They’re not ‘mating habits’, it’s ‘courtship rituals’.” Gus corrected and eyed her suspiciously. “And why do you want to know about that in particular? Hmmm...” Amity felt her face flush and she flailed around for an acceptable answer as Gus kept going. “You don’t want Luz to know you were asking about this either…” His eyes suddenly widened and he stared up at Amity in disbelief. “No. Way.”

“It’s not what you think!” Amity tried to deny, but it was too late.

“You want to make sure Luz feels welcome at Grom!” Any further protests Amity had died in her mouth as Gus continued. “She’s probably feeling pretty homesick, and since everyone’s going to be going to Grom and being all couple-y, she’s probably going to feel extra homesick.” The boy was nodding as though he’d deduced some great mystery and Amity really had no idea of how to respond except:

“That’s right… I don’t want her to feel left out. You got me.” Amity grinned nervously.

“Yeah, I don’t really know all that much about human courtship rituals, but I know who probably does.”

“Who?” Amity asked, trying not to sound too eager.

“Eda! She gets all sorts of stuff from Earth. If anyone knows about that sort of thing, it’s probably her.” That sounded like an even worse idea than just talking to Gus. The Owl Lady was Luz’s mentor and a lot sharper than Gus was. She’d probably pick up on something immediately, and she’d already had an inkling about her and Luz.

“I guess I could ask her after school…” Amity mumbled, already trying to think of how she could, or if she even would.

“Yeah, oh, if you learn something neat about humans, tell me, okay?” Gus grinned cheerfully, ducking out of Amity’s shadow and walking away. “Oh, and don’t worry about Luz, I won’t tell her a thing. I got you, girl!”

Amity waited until Gus was out of sight before letting her head smack against the wall. That hadn’t been nearly as helpful as she’d hoped it would be, and now all she had was a vague reassurance that humans didn’t have pheromones and another source of information to track down.

Groaning to herself, Amity stood up and started on her way to her next class. At least she had a few hours to work out what exactly she was going to do, and hopefully it would all be worth the effort later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, after that finale, I think we could all do with some silly comedy bits about people having no idea how humans work. Also I now have fresh fun ideas for this fic, fun fun fun ideas. Muahahaha! I promise it won't be nearly as angsty as my other works, though.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being amazing. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and reading my dumb stuff.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	6. Chapter 6

“This was a terrible idea.” Amity grumbled for the third time as she fought her way through the undergrowth heading towards The Owl House. She’d somehow managed to avoid running into Luz after school, and she hoped that the human wouldn’t return to her abode too soon.

After visiting the house a few times for her study sessions with Luz, Amity was now something of an expert at getting to the Owl House. She wasn’t all that fond of visiting though, because of the bane of her existence. Just thinking about that infernal bird-tube sent shivers down her spine, and she could almost hear his obnoxious voice.

“Hoot hoot!”

“Aaaagh!” Amity jumped and flailed her arms in shock. It hadn’t been her imagination, the bird-tube was right by her ear and was staring at her with its soulless black eyes.

“Heeeeeeey, it’s Luz’s girlfriend!” The bird-tube announced loudly, forcing Amity to shush him.

“I am not!” She snarled, wondering what she could do to shut the annoying thing up. Looking around wildly she saw a small bird perched on a nearby tree branch. “Look, a distraction!”

“What? Where?” Somehow it worked and the bird-tube shot off in the direction Amity pointed in, leaving her free to run in the opposite direction. Bursting out of the woods and into the clearing where the Owl House stood, Amity realised her plan had a flaw. How was she supposed to open the door when the bird-tube was all extended and not there?

Thinking quickly, she bolted around the side of the house and around to the backdoor, which she proceeded to hammer on loudly until it was opened by no one. Amity blinked in surprise, looking around for whoever opened the door, and after hearing a loud cough, looked down to see the tiny demon the Owl Lady kept around.

“Uh, can I help you?” The demon asked pointedly, looking up at Amity.

“I’m, um, here to see The Owl Lady?” Amity said politely. This demon hadn’t managed to aggravate her like the bird-tube had. Also, he was so cute! She couldn’t bear to be rude to him, and she felt kind of bad about squashing his cupcake a while ago. As she was busy making a mental note to buy the adorable little demon a new cupcake, she missed what he said next.

“What did you say?”

“I  _ said  _ that Eda’s busy right now.” He huffed, tapping his tiny foot.

“Please? It’s important.” The little demon scrutinised her for a moment before rolling his eyes.

“Fiiiiiine.” He grumbled before turning and hollering into the house. “Eda! You’ve got a visitor.” A pause then a loud yell back.

“Who is it, and why didn’t you tell them I’m busy?!”

“It’s Luz’s girlfriend, the one with the green hair, and she said it’s important.” Amity was about to deny the accusation yet again when there was a loud groan and the Owl Lady appeared, looking more dishevelled than usual and drinking a golden potion from a bottle using a plastic straw.

“Whaddaya want, kid? I’m kinda busy here and if you’re looking for Luz, she’s got this thing with her other friends, something about a grudgby match I think. I wasn’t really paying attention.” She asked as she continued to slurp at her potion.

“I was informed you’re the foremost expert on humans in the Boiling Isles, and I was hoping you could answer some questions for me.” The Owl Lady blinked a few times, then looked down at the little demon.

“I thought you said it was important!” She berated him and he crossed his arms huffily.

“She’s the one who said it was important, not me! Whatever, I’ve got things to do as well.” And with that the demon marched off leaving Amity with the rather irked Owl Lady.

“Look, kid, I’m not really in the mood to be messed around. If you wanna learn about humans, go read a book.” The Owl Lady made to shut the door, but Amity wedged it open with her foot.

“I already tried that, and it was useless, I thought you were the most powerful witch on the Isles, surely that would mean you’re also the smartest.” Amity wheedled, hoping her appeal to The Owl Lady’s ego would help.

“Well, I suppose I am rather brilliant.” Amity’s gambit seemed to have paid off as The Owl Lady preened at the implicit praise. “And I do know more than a few things about humans. But!” She started down at Amity and took a long sip of her potion. “Why are you asking me and not Luz? I’m not stupid, I know whatever I know about humans pales in comparison to what she knows.”

Amity flinched at the Owl Lady’s perceptiveness and wondered how she was going to get out of answering truthfully. “Uhhhh, I…”

“Okay, because I can’t be bothered to let you lead me on a wild slug chase let me guess: You want to know something about humans so you can more successfully woo Luz. Is that it?”

“Pretty much, yeah...” Heat rushed to Amity’s cheeks and she removed her foot from the door. “I should just go.”

“Now, hold on a sec, kiddo.” Amity paused and turned back to The Owl Lady who smirked down at her. “I remember what it was like to be your age and do incredibly daft things because you followed your heart. Oh, the things my baby sis would do to win a girl’s affections.”

“I thought Lilith was older than you?”

“What?! DId she tell you that?” Amity nodded silently. “Lies and slander. I’m clearly the older sister. I mean, look at how grey my hair is, and all these wrinkles around my eyes. I’m obviously the older one, and therefore wiser.” Amity wasn’t entirely sure who to believe at this point, but still nodded along so as not to upset the Owl Lady. “Anyway, that’s all besides the point. Do you want my help or not?”

“Yes, please, Miss Owl Lady.”

“Well don’t just stand there, come in. Oh and never call me ‘Miss Owl Lady’ again, or I’ll hex you. Just call me Eda, like Luz does. Well, actually I think she’s called me Mom about as many times, but there is nooooo way I’m unpacking that mess.” Eda led the way through the kitchen and into the living room, where she proceeded to flop down on the sofa and grabbed another bottle of potion from a table. Tossing aside the now empty old one, she uncorked the bottle and stuck her straw in, taking a long sip of it before refocusing upon Amity.

“So, what is it you want to know about humans, kid?”

“I mostly wanted to learn about their courtship rituals. Oh, and whether or not they bite their mate’s head off.” There was a moment’s pause, then Eda snorted with laughter.

“Of course that’s what you wanted to know.” She cackled as Amity turned bright red. “Oh, you have got it so bad for Luz, don’t you, kid?”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mock me.” Amity mumbled out, looking away irritably. “If I’m going to explore this… attraction I have towards Luz, I want to do it properly and make sure I stay safe whilst doing so.”

“Hence the whole head-biting thing.” Eda nodded, trying and failing to suppress her smirk.

“I wasn’t able to learn either way if humans did that. Augustus mentioned something about neck biting though.”

“Oh boy, humans do like neck biting.” Eda snickered, and Amity got the distinct impression she was still being made fun of. “I think you’re probably a little young to be getting that hot and heavy though.”

“I need to put on weight?!” Amity’s eyes widened, did that mean Willow was ahead of her in courting Luz?!

“No, it’s an expression.” Eda groaned, covering her face with her free hand and taking another drink of potion. “You know what, nevermind, just forget about the whole neck-biting thing. It’s not important, because humans do not bite their mate’s head off.”

Amity was still rather confused but she breathed a sigh of relief that her neck would be remaining intact. “Okay, that’s a weight off my mind.”

“Yep, your head will still remain a weight on your shoulders.” Snickering at her attempt at humour, Eda sat up and gave Amity a look. “So, what else do you wanna know about human ‘courtship rituals’?”

“Uhh…” Amity thought for a moment. She hadn’t actually contemplated what else she might need to know. “How do I ask her? Do humans give each other hearts when declaring their interest?”

“Oh definitely not!” Eda waved a hand at the idea. “Do not give Luz a heart with a message on it. Do you have any idea how tacky that is?”

“But it’s what all the other students do.” Amity mumbled. Eda was really quite rude sometimes, and it was rather disheartening.

“Exactly! Kids were doing it when I went to Hexside. It’s overdone and lame.” Eda leaned forward and drained half her potion in one long sip. “You think Luz will go out with you if you do something that lame?”

“She might… Luz is a nice person.”

“Well, yeah. Too nice, in my opinion.” Eda rolled her eyes disapprovingly. “But why take the chance? Do something original.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“Uh uh uh.” Eda wagged a finger. “It won’t be original if I come up with it for you.”

Nodding slowly, Amity narrowed her eyes at Eda as a thought just occurred to her. “You’re being oddly supportive. I would’ve thought you’d be more protective of your apprentice.”

“Eh.” Shrugging, Eda finished off her bottle of potion and tossed it aside. “I guess I could, but I also think it’s good for Luz to make mistakes of her own without me mommying her all the time.”

Amity raised an eyebrow at this. “So you think I’m a mistake waiting to be made then.”

“Now I didn’t say that… Okay, maybe I did a little. But what do you expect me to say? You’re my baby sister’s protegé.”

“Not really… Not anymore.” Amity crossed her arms and Eda raised an eyebrow curiously.

“Oh? Trouble in paradise?”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Amity grumbled half-heartedly. “After that debacle at the Covention, Miss Lilith and I have been…Look, it’s complicated, and none of your business.”

“Okay, okay, jeez.” Eda’s gleeful grin didn’t abate, however, as she draped herself back over the sofa. “So you wanna ask Luz out, huh? Well, once you’ve worked out how to do it, why not ask her to Grom?”

“I thought you were against me doing something overdone and lame?”

“Well, yeah, I am. But Grom isn’t overdone and lame for Luz. Humans don’t have Grometheus, do they?” Eda was right about that, but Amity was still rather disinclined to ask Luz to go to something that big.

“Isn’t there something else I can do? Do you have any idea what humans do to initiate courtship?” Eda scratched her head and hummed in thought.

“Well, I do recall there being something about murdering plants and presenting them to the person you wish to court.” Amity’s brow furrowed at that, something didn’t sound quite right.

“But, why would you murder plants for that?”

“I think it’s supposed to show you’re a good provider or something. As for why it’s plants, it’s probably because humans don’t have magic and can’t take down anything more dangerous than a plant. That said, we all know flora is nothing to be messed with if you don’t know what you’re doing.” Amity nodded, remembering some of the things Willow could do with plants. 

“I’m not entirely comfortable with murdering a bunch of plants for Luz. I don’t think she’d like it.”

“Well, she’s fine with me eating demons, and she eats plants, soooooooo...”

“You know, I’m starting to wonder why I’m bothering asking other people for advice. Nobody seems to have anything remotely useful to say.” Amity complained loudly, getting tired of standing in the middle of the room like she was under inspection or something, and walked over to collapse in one of the armchairs.

“Hey, I told you not to give Luz a heart, that was useful!”

“Not as useful as I’d hoped.” Amity sniped back, curling in on herself and glaring at Eda over her knees. “I still have no idea of what i’m supposed to do.”

“Well, stressing about it ain’t exactly gonna help ya, is it, kid?” Amity nodded, but it wasn’t as though she could just stop being stressed. “I think you should take a page out of Luz’s book.”

“How?”

“Don’t overthink stuff. Have you ever known Luz to think anything through?” Amity shook her head. She couldn’t think of a single time Luz hadn’t jumped head-first into a situation. “Now, that’s not always a good thing, and she definitely could benefit from the influence of someone a little more level-headed. Like you, for example.” It was an innocent enough suggestion, but Amity couldn’t help but blush a little, and buried her face in her knees to hide it.

“I’m sensing that there’s going to be a ‘but’ coming up soon.” Her voice was muffled by her legs, but Eda heard well enough and smirked.

“ _ But, _ if you keep overthinking and stressing, you’ll never get anything done. So don’t think, just do. It’s the wild witch way.” That was… surprisingly useful advice, but Amity still felt the urge to argue against it.

“I’m not a wild witch.”

“Pfft, so you say. I know what you and Luz get up to, she tells me everything. I wish she wouldn’t though. I do not need to know exactly how many grubs she found in her school lunch.” Eda shuddered in horror. “Anyway, you and her are learning old-school magic. No way the covens would approve of that, and anything they don’t approve of is wild magic. Therefore, you’re a wild witch! Welcome to the club!”

“But I’m not actually practising it.” Amity tried to defend herself, though it rang hollow. “I can’t be a wild witch, I’m going to become head of the Emperor’s Coven.”

“Riiiiiight.” Eda rolled her eyes. “Well, you believe what you want, kid. Is there anything else you wanna know about humans?”

Amity hummed and wracked her brains for anything else she needed to know. “They definitely don’t have pheromones, right?”

“No, humans do not have pheromones, so if you were planning on doing some kind of smell to make yourself smell good to Luz, it won’t work.”

“I was not!” Amity snapped. She really hadn’t, but now that Eda had given her the idea, she was almost disappointed that they didn’t exude pheromones.

“You definitely were!” Eda cackled, kicking her legs in the air in amusement. “Oh dear, kid, you’ve got it so bad.” Fortunately for Amity, her peals of laughter were interrupted. Unfortunately, she was interrupted by the door opening to reveal that infernal bird-tube.

“Hoot hoot! Look who’s back!” Even more unfortunately for Amity, Luz walked in the door, pointedly ignoring the bird-tube as she closed the door behind her, and squeaked in shock as she noticed Amity trying desperately trying to make herself as small as possible.

“Oh, hey, Amity!” Luz chirped, skipping over to Amity’s chair and bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet. “I was looking for you after school so we could go out looking for more runes, but I couldn’t find you. You should have said you were coming straight here!”

“Yeah, sorry.” Amity offered up an apologetic smile.

“I’m just gonna go drop off my stuff and we can get started!” Luz skipped off again, her hands doing that strange flappy thing that Amity used to do as a child before her parents caught her and told her not to.

Sighing softly, she made to get up, but paused as she noticed the look on Eda’s face. “What?” Slowly, Eda got to her feet and approached Amity, looming over her chair menacingly. She held out her hand and waited, tapping her foot impatiently. Further off in the house, Amity heard several loud crashes and even a yelp from Luz. 

“You know, I really should keep that thing on hand rather than doing this.” Eda said conversationally, hand still outstretched. “Just give me a minute.” Finally, Eda’s owl-headed staff flew into the room and she snatched it from the air. “About time.” With an unnecessary twirl, she directed it at Amity, who shrank back from the instrument of inadvertent destruction.

“I’m only going to say this once, kid. Don’t you dare hurt my Luz, or I will tear out your bile sac and make you drink a cocktail made out of it, then I’ll remove it from your first stomach and keep going until there’s nothing left!” Amity nodded in silent fear of The Owl Lady, who slowly lowered her staff, but continued to glare daggers at Amity. “Good. Oh and don’t tell Luz we had this little talk. I don’t want her to think I’m going all soft on her or anything.” Amity nodded again, and Eda flashed her a mischievous grin. “Good! You two have fun!”

Hesitantly, Amity uncurled herself from the chair and backed warily away from Eda as Luz came bouncing back into the room. “Okay, I’m ready!” She paused, looking between Amity and Eda. “Did something happen whilst I was gone?”

“Nope! Nothing at all!” Amity answered hastily, grabbing Luz by the arm and pulling her to the door whilst trying to ignore the warmth she felt at just this small amount of contact with Luz. “Let’s go!” With a small shrug, Luz allowed amity to lead her out of the Owl House and into the woods, ignoring the bird-tube’s farewell calls. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure I could just do these misconceptions about humans and their society all day and never get bored. It's way too fun. What's also fun is Eda, writing an irreverent sass machine who's spending time convincing people she's the older sister is great and I need more excuses to shoehorn her in. 
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being a great rubber duck. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and being super cute.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	7. Chapter 7

She could do this. Seventy eighth time’s the charm, as they always said. Taking a deep breath, Amity put her pen to the pink paper once more and began to write, mumbling as she did so.

“Dearest Luz, would you do me the honour of-.” Amity stopped and stared at what she’d just written. “No, no, no. Too formal.” She snarled, crumpling up the paper and tossing it into the corner of the room with all her other failed attempts. She’d been at this for the better part of the morning and she only had a day to do this.

After her talk with Eda, Amity had, upon reflection, decided that inviting Luz to Grom wasn’t the worst idea. Since Humans didn’t have Grom, Luz would have no idea of its significance, and thus Amity could possibly play it safe just in case Luz wasn’t interested in her romantically. Then there wouldn’t be any rejection.

Probably.

At first she’d tried some illicit plant magic to create a declaration of intent to court Luz, but that had gone horribly wrong and the attempt was now buried in the garden, never to be spoken of again. Her initial plan scuppered, Amity instead elected for something a little more understated. Similar to the message heart, but instead of carving the message on a heart, which was both messy and oftentimes illegible, Amity was writing the invitation on the nicest piece of paper she could find.

Or at least it had been the nicest piece of paper she’d found before she’d misspelled Luz’s name, and with this latest failure, she was now on the seventy-ninth nicest piece of paper she could find. Grabbing the next piece of paper, Amity smoothed it out and rested her head on her hand.

Why were words so hard all of a sudden?! She was normally reasonably eloquent, but the moment her pen touched the paper, all of that was gone. Sighing deeply, Amity resolved to just write something and hopefully it would be good.

“Dearest Luz, would you please please please go to Grom with me?” Amity paused, staring at the words before shrieking in frustration and throwing it aside. Why had she thought pleading would be a good idea? That was possibly one of the least attractive things she could think of.

With a soft thunk, Amity let her head fall to the desk in despair. She was never going to get this right and it had to be perfect, otherwise Luz would for sure reject it. She probably had a great many suitors, Luz was gorgeous and something of an oddity after all and Amity had to make sure she stood above them all.

She could picture herself handing an inadequate letter over to Luz, only for her to take one look and tear it to pieces before telling Amity that they could no longer even be friends because of it. That would be possibly the worst thing. Amity liked being Luz’s friend a lot, and the thought of losing it because she dared hope for more was awful.

Groaning, Amity raised her head and grabbed the next piece of paper. Putting her pen to it, she began writing her next attempt. She only got to ‘Dear Luz,’ before she felt a faint breeze ruffle her hair. But she hadn’t left the window open. Then she heard the faint giggle and she realised what was going on.

Continuing to stare at the paper, Amity circled her toes beneath her desk, forming two spell circles, which in turn manifested two fists of alchemical goop, which grabbed onto the two interlopers leaning over her and smacked them into the opposite wall.

“What did I tell you two about coming into my room uninvited?” She growled, getting up and crossing her arms as she inspected her nosy siblings.

“That you didn’t mind it and in fact enjoyed the company?” Ed suggested as he struggled against the fist.

“I’m pretty sure I said the exact opposite of that.” Amity snarked back with a scowl.

“We heard you screeching and thought you were upset.” Em defended, resigned to hanging there until Amity saw fit to release them. “We were concerned.”

“Well, there’s nothing for you to be concerned about.” Amity said shortly, gesturing for her abominations to release the twins before returning to her desk.

“I’m not so sure about that, Mittens.” Em walked over to the small pile of crumpled up attempts and started looking through them. “It looks like you’re having a lot of trouble with this.”

“I’m fine.” Amity insisted, already writing out her next attempt.

“Mittens, I’m pretty sure ‘you’ is spelled with a ‘y’ and an ‘o’.” Ed pointed out, leaning over Amity’s shoulder, earning a screech of irritation from Amity and another failed attempt for the pile.

“Wow, you really need our help with this, don’t you.” Em read through some of the failed attempts. “Listen to this one: ‘Es mucho bonita’. Did I pronounce that right?”

“I think that human translation guide I bought might be inaccurate.” Amity scowled at the book she’d bought yesterday at the market and Ed picked it up and flipped through.

“What is a ‘hovercraft’ and why is it full of eels?” He asked, and his sisters shrugged, having just as little idea as him.

“Why were you even trying to write in human anyway?” Em asked, continuing to sift through the failed attempts.

“It’s not ‘human’. Apparently humans all have different languages, and Luz speaks both ours and one called ‘Spanish’.” Amity explained with an eye roll.

“That’s not an answer.”

“I thought it would make her feel special if I did something unique that showed I was interested in her as a person.” Amity shrugged, feeling the familiar blush crawl up her cheeks.

“That’s… Actually not the worst idea you’ve ever had, Mittens. Way better than this one: ‘You very pretty, want go Grom with me?’.” Em suppressed a snicker and Amity wondered why she hadn’t incinerated the evidence of her previous failures.

“I thought you were going to help me?” Amity sniped. She didn’t particularly want their help, but it would at least be marginally better than them continuing to tease her.

“We are,. We’re looking at what you’ve already done and using it to determine your best course of action.” Ed said as he continued to flip through the unhelpful book.

“ _ I’m _ looking through the failures,  _ you’re  _ not helping at all.” Em pointed out, glaring at Ed. “Why are you here if you’re not going to actually help?”

“I’m here for moral support. Besides, I know nothing about wooing girls. If Mittens ever shows interest in a guy, then I’m your witch, but until then...” He shrugged with a smirk, tactfully ignoring his sisters’ long suffering sighs.

“Do  _ you  _ have anything insightful, then?” Amity asked Em who tossed aside another particularly bad letter.

“I don’t know why you’re making such a big fuss about this. You’re overcomplicating it. Here.” Em walked over and grabbed the pen and a piece of paper. “Luz, will you go to Grom with me? Amity.” With a flourish, Em looped the tail of the ‘y’ and admired her handiwork. “There, simple and to the point.”

“But what is simple isn’t good enough?” Amity whined, looking up at Em pleadingly. “What if it’s too simple and she says no?”

“Wow, you really do not want to get rejected, do ya?” Em reached out and patted Amity on the head. “Look, Mittens, just try to relax about that a little. And trust me, I’m pretty sure simple is what will work best with Luz. She’s a cutie and all, but she’s got such a short attention span, anything more complex and she might lose interest.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say.” Amity muttered, trying not to think of the time Luz had gotten distracted during a lesson and ended up filling one of the potions labs with a sticky green goop.

“I think it’s pretty accurate. Anyway, we’ve done our part. Or rather,  _ I’ve  _ done my part. The rest is up to you.” With a final pat on the head, Em wandered to the door with Ed in tow, but paused before leaving. “Oh! I nearly forgot, you wanna put a bet on who’s gonna be Grom Royalty this year?”

“You’re doing that again?” Amity sighed, remembering the previous years and her siblings illicit gambling ring that she’d tried to expose more than once.

“Of course! We’ll give you good odds too. You can even bet on yourself.” That got Amity’s attention, and she stared at Ed and Em.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Oh yeah, we’re giving 3:2 odds that you’ll get picked as Grom Queen. We can’t let you bet on what your greatest fear is though, we have some professional standards.” Ed’s grin didn’t waver in the face of Amity’s thunderous glare.

“You’re placing bets on me and my worst fear?!” She almost shrieked.

“Well, yeah.” Ed shrugged, seemingly unaware of what was making his younger sister so upset.

“You’re currently the favourite too, since you’re one of the strongest witches in the school. After us, of course. Bump would be mad not to pick the strongest.” Em added with a slightly more sympathetic smile, whilst Ed got a gleeful grin on his face.

“Hey, if you tell us what your greatest fear is, we can steer people betting on it away from that, and we’ll give you a cut of the takings.” He waggled his eyebrows at her until her glower put a stop to it.

“No, there is no way I am telling you what my greatest fear is. I don’t even really know what it is.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. She had a sneaking suspicion she knew what her greatest fear was, but she wasn’t certain, and she definitely didn’t want it getting out. It was far too embarrassing.

“Awwww, but think of how many snails we could earn.” Ed wheedled, fluttering his eyelashes at Amity, who remained unmoved.

“No. Now get out, you cheat.” She waved her hand at her brother, who reluctantly left the room, closing the door behind him. Amity sighed deeply, looking down at the letter Em had written for her. It was a simple letter, but elegantly written. Amity had always been just a little bit envious of her sister’s effortlessly neat handwriting, very unlike her own untidy scrawl.

She wasn’t keen on using something Em had written for her, but it was currently her best option. Sighing again, Amity folded the letter neatly and set it aside. She had other things to get done today, and she would have to wait until school tomorrow to give it to Luz. It would be pretty much her only chance too. Grom was the evening after, and she was cutting it stupidly close by only asking Luz with only a day to spare. She could do this though. She could face her fear and conquer it. Maybe.

* * *

She couldn’t do this.

Amity was currently hiding in one of the school bathrooms trying not to hyperventilate. She arrived at school that morning, confident and prepared to give Luz the letter, or maybe just shove it in Luz’s locker. Then she’d caught a glimpse of Luz and all that confidence had fled, as had she.

No matter how she sliced it, she just knew it wasn’t going to go well if she gave Luz the note. She couldn’t hide in here all day either though. Reluctantly, Amity climbed down from the toilet and opened the stall door. Ignoring the cries of the sink demon that she hadn’t washed her hands, Amity left the toilet and slinked along the corridor.

All she had to do was avoid seeing Luz for the next two days and she’d be fine. It was just two days, what could possibly happen? Grabbing her books from her locker, Amity hurried towards her next class as she tried to remember if she had any with Luz today. She was so wrapped up in her thoughts on how to avoid Luz that she didn’t watch where she was going as she rounded a corner and smacked right into someone.

“Ow! Watch where you’re going nitwit!” Amity yelped as she was sent crashing to the floor, dropping her things. She looked up at the fool who’d crashed into her and her stomachs lurched as she saw it was the last person she wanted to crash into. “Oh, Luz… and co. Sorry about that.”

“No problem! Here, let me help you with that.” Luz chirped, already starting to pick up the books Amity had dropped on impact. All her books gathered, Amity looked up at Luz and her stomachs dropped even further as she saw her note held out to her by Luz. “Here’s your note.”

With a squeak, Amity’s hand shot out, snatched it back and stuffed it into her pocket before realising just how suspicious that was.

“Wow, fast grabbers you got there.” Thankfully, Luz seemed to be oblivious and continued to smile at Amity as they got to their feet.

“It’s just… It’s private.” Amity said hastily, beating back the mad impulse to just give it to Luz right now.

“Oh, okay, then!” Luz’s smile remained guileless as Willow and Augustus joined her and she gasped loudly. “Oh! Amity, I was looking for you earlier, but then I got distracted because we were talking about Grom. I’ve got something I wanna show you!” Luz rummaged around in her pocket for a moment and pulled out one of the slips of paper she used to draw her glyphs on.

“You found a new glyph?” Amity asked, excitement at this new knowledge sweeping away her prior anxiety.

“Yep! I spent like hours staring at one of Eda’s plants with a magnifying glass and trying it, and it finally worked!” Luz tapped the glyph with a finger and the paper crumpled and contorted, sprouting a small flower, which she held out to Amity. “Here!”

Amity blinked in surprise, then wordlessly took the flower and stared at it. Was this…? No, Luz would never be so forward, right? Amity looked up at Luz, who continued to beam at her, and she had no idea what that meant.

“Thanks, it’s very pretty, and I’m so happy you learned a new spell.”

“I know, right! I can just feel it, all the glyphs just out there waiting to be discovered!” Luz was vibrating with excitement now, her hands doing their excited flapping thing. It was very infectious, and Amity felt the urge to join her in the flapping, but restrained herself. It was very exciting though, learning something new always was.

Any further conversation was cut off, however, by the screeching of the intercom and Principal Bump’s voice coming over it. “Attention, Hexside students, this is your principal speaking.” Amity rolled her eyes at this. Whilst she would never openly disrespect an authority figure, she would privately think it was silly for him to announce that when he was the only person with access to the intercom system.

“It is that time of year again. Grom is almost upon us, and it is time to announce the Grom Royalty!” Amity had forgotten that was happening and her bile sac churned uncomfortably as she remembered Ed and Em and their odds on her getting picked.

“And this year, it is my privilege to bestow our highest Grom honour upon… Amity Blight, our Grom Queen!” Amity felt like she was going to be sick. In fact, she just might be. Everyone nearby was looking at her and whispering amongst themselves, with one notable exception.

“Woo, go Amity! Up top!” Luz raised her hand for one of those high five things she did sometimes, but Amity was too busy trying to make sure her stomachs didn’t evacuate themselves. In fact, that wasn’t going to be an option. Clapping a hand over her mouth, she fled for the nearest bathroom, ignoring Luz’s disappointed calls.

Bursting into the nearest stall, Amity clutched at the sides as her stomachs emptied themselves violently. This was all way too much, gingerly, Amity collapsed onto the floor, not caring how dirty it was. First her fears about Luz, and now she was going to have to actually face those fears as manifested by Grometheus.

Standing up and trying not to look at the partially digested remains of her last couple of meals, Amity exited the stall and washed her hands and mouth. She didn’t really feel like going to classes today, and thankfully, as Grom Queen, she was exempt in the run up to the event.

Leaving the bathroom, she proceeded to wander aimlessly through the school corridors until she finally looked up and realised she’d managed to wander into the gym. There were several students and Principal Bump working on the decorations, as well as an unfortunate demon suspended from a rope. As Amity entered, Principal Bump noticed her and walked over.

“Ah, Amity, ready to fight Grometheus and save us all from an unending nightmare?” He asked, scribbling something on his notepad.

“As ready as I’ll ever be, sir.” Amity grinned as best as she could, and the Principal nodded absently.

“Good, good. Grom Royalty, ready to face certain death, check!” He wandered off again, leaving Amity to walk over to the bleachers and climb up them. Sitting down on the top row of seats, Amity watched as the students worked on the decorations. When she’d first come to Hexside, she too had been swept up in the festivities and the spectacle of the fight. Now that she was the one fighting, it all felt like a farce.

As she watched a student in the bard track testing the acoustics of the stage, there was a loud grinding, and the floor split open to reveal Grometheus’ prison. Looking around to see who’d opened it, Amity was only a little surprised to see Luz approaching the hole as the armoury rose out of the floor.

“Huh, medieval torture’s a weird theme, but hey, it looks pretty darn cool.” Luz commented, her voice carrying up to Amity’s seat as the human examined the weapons.

“They’re not for decorations.” Amity corrected, catching Luz’s attention. Slowly she got up and hopped down the bleachers to join Luz on the edge of the pit. “They’re for me when I make my debut as Grom queen in the arena.”

“Riiiiiight. You don’t seem particularly jazzed about it.”

“Jazzed?”

“Oh, it means excited.” Luz explained and Amity nodded in understanding.

“Not really, given what I have to do.” Amity frowned down into the pit. For a brief moment, she caught a glimpse of the black goop that was Grometheus before it vanished back into the shadows, waiting for its moment.

“Uhhhhh, have a dance? Oh! Is there a ritual that involves pig’s blood. Because if so, that’s both kinda cool and really really disgusting.” Luz gazed up at Amity with sparkling eyes, and she couldn’t help but giggle at how silly Luz could be sometimes.

“I thought you were talking about Grom with Willow and Augustus earlier?”

“We did, but then I got distracted by someone asking out Skara with a literal heart, and then I bumped into you and showed you my new glyph and-.” Luz explained in her usual rapidfire way until Amity interrupted her.

“Right, I get it, you don’t know what Grom is about.” Amity sighed, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. “Down there is Grometheus, the Fear-Bringer. It’s a monster from the beginning of time that lives under the school.”

“Oooooh.” Luz peered into the darkness in search of the monster.

“Every year it tries to break free, and a student has to defeat it before it does and invades the Isles. In his infinite wisdom, Bump holds a big party and calls it tradition.”

“That… doesn’t sound fun.” Amity was pretty sure that was one of the biggest understatements she had ever heard.

“Grometheus is called the Fear-Bringer because it can read your thoughts and will shapeshift into your worst fear, and mine…” Amity’s eyes flicked over at Luz briefly. “It’s  _ very _ embarrassing, and I don’t know if I can beat it.”

“If you’re so worried, why don’t you tell Principal Bump you want out of this deathmatch thing?” Luz cocked her head then gasped. “Unless talking to Bump is your greatest fear!”

“I wish.” Amity mumbled, smiling a little at Luz. “But that’s not a bad idea. Thanks, Luz.”

“No prob!” Luz was so chipper, even knowing Amity might be facing certain death, it made her bile sac twist with affection, so she turned away quickly and marched out of the gym to hide her luminescent blush. Hopefully Luz’s idea would work and she’d be able to avoid having to fight Grometheus and have her fear exposed to the world. If not, tomorrow evening would be the worst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, it's a canon thing, wondered when we'd get to one of these. I've split Grom up into two pieces so we'll get the incredibly gay stuff a little later. For now we've got oblivious Luz and pining Amity, which is still super fun and great. 
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being super cute. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and being my Luz.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	8. Chapter 8

That night, a dejected Amity made her way through the woods, kicking the occasional pinecone as she went, not bothering to listen to their complaints as she did so. Her attempt at convincing Principal Bump to let her off facing Grometheus had failed miserably, and she’d spent the rest of the afternoon trying to calm herself down before taking this walk to clear her head. She’d been chosen, and unless someone volunteered to take her place, she was going to fight Grometheus.

Of course there was nobody foolish or reckless enough to even consider facing the monster, much of the celebration of Grom was done by students who were positively thrilled to not be chosen to fight Grometheus.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true., Amity could think of one person who would absolutely be that foolish and reckless. That was an untenable idea though. If she didn’t think she was up to fighting Grometheus, there was no way Luz could stand up to it.

Amity was so wrapped up in her thoughts about Luz, that she stopped paying attention to where she was going and ended up stumbling over a stone. Cursing, Amity tried to push her way through some foliage, but all of a sudden, a loud yell came from said foliage and something hard clobbered her on the head, sending and sent her crashing backwards into the mud.

“Ow!” She yelped, trying to get back up to face her attacker, when a familiar ball of light popped into existence.

“Oh my gosh! Amity, are you alright?” Of course it was Luz, all she had to do was think of the Human and she’d appear. Silently, Amity took Luz’s proffered hand and slid her her way over to a nearby tree stump, which she plonked herself down on with a deep sigh.

“And here I thought today couldn’t get any worse.” She muttered, though she regretted the minor dig at Luz immediately.

“Did your talk with Bump not go well then?” Luz asked, walking over and gesturing for Amity to scooch over a bit so she could sit as well. Amity felt her cheeks warm as she did so and Luz sat down, her leg brushing up against Amity’s.

“I spoke to him, did and he said no. I’m Grom Queen. Unless someone were to take my place, I have to fight Grometheus. And who’d want to switch with me?” She chuckled mirthlessly and shook her head. Tomorrow evening she was doomed. She’d be forced to confront her worst fear in front of everyone and would almost certainly fail.

“I’ll do it.” Amity blinked for a moment. She’d known Luz would probably offer, but she hadn’t expected it so quickly.

“What?”

“I’ll fight Grom in your place., I shall be your fearless champion!.” The moment Luz said this, a very large spider scuttled around onto her face, making her scream and leap to her feet batting at it. Amity waited for her ‘fearless champion’ to finish off her opponent before protesting.

“No, Luz, I couldn’t possibly ask that of you.”

“You’re not asking, I’m offering.” Luz’s jaw was set and she folded her arms as she looked down at Amity. “I don’t care how dangerous you think it is, you’re one of the bravest witches I know, and if fighting Grometheus scares you that much, then I’ll do it for you.”

“Luz, you don’t understand-.” Amity started, but Luz held up a hand.

“Nope, you can’t change my mind, and even if you say no now, I’m still going to tell Bump that I’m taking your place.”

“Luz, you could get hurt, badly.” Amity protested only for Luz to get a confident smirk on her face.

“Then I guess I’ll need all the help I can get to prepare. Besides, I’m sure my fears are far less dangerous than yours. I mean, you live here, where it seems like half of everything wants to kill you. If you’re unafraid of walking through these woods at night, I’d hate to think what actually frightens you. And please don’t tell me, otherwise I might get scared of it too.”

Guilt boiled in Amity’s stomachs. She was almost certain she knew what she was most afraid of, and it was really nothing in comparison to the horrors of the Isles. But there was no way she could come clean about it to Luz, not unless she wanted her fear to come to pass.

Sighing deeply, Amity looked up at Luz’s determined face. “Fine, I’ll help you train. I need some time to think about how, so I’ll come back in the morning. You should get some rest, you’ll need it.”

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow!” Then, without warning, Luz lunged in for a tight hug, which left Amity both bright red and gasping for breath. “Byeeeee!” Just as quickly as it had happened, the hug was released and Luz skipped off, presumably in the direction of the Owl House.

With another sigh, Amity got up from the stump and brushed herself off before heading back to Bonesborough and home. As she walked, Amity wracked her brains for how she would help Luz train in what little time they had before Grom tomorrow. She could engage Luz in a magical duel, one that was at least a little fairer now that Luz knew some magic and neither of them had mentors who’d cheated.

But if she did that, then Luz could get hurt, and then she’d be in even worse shape for facing down Grometheus, so that idea was out. Then again, fighting Grometheus wasn’t so much about physical or magical might as it was about facing your fears and conquering them. But Amity didn’t have a way of making Luz’s fears manifest, she wasn’t the Fear-Bringer and her talents at illusion magic were rather lacking.

She paused half-step, then broke into a run. She knew exactly who could help her with this, even if she wasn’t exactly keen on asking them.

Amity jogged along the road leading up to the large gates in front of Blight Manor and slipped through before slowing to a walk as she approached the manor, just in case her parents were watching.

Entering the foyer, all Amity had to do was wait for a couple of minutes before her siblings leaned over the balcony, as they often did when she returned home.

“Mittens! We missed you!” Ed called out from above, smirking mischievously down at her. “Good job on getting Grom Queen. You sure you don’t want in on our ring? We’re gonna make plenty of moneyyyy.”

“No, still not interested, but I do need both of you to help me with something.” Amity called up to them, quickly climbing up the stairs to their level.

“And what, pray tell, do you want us to help you with?” Em asked, turning to look at her sister curiously.

“And why, pray tell, why should we help you when you just refused to help us?” Ed added, his smirk growing a little wider.

“Because if you don’t, then Luz is going to get seriously hurt by Grometheus and all the Isles will be plunged into an eternal nightmare.”

The twins exchanged a confused glance before looking back to Amity. “What?!” They asked in unison.

“Not here.” Amity beckoned them to follow her to her room. Once the door was shut behind them, Amity turned back to face the twins. “Luz is going to fight Grom.”

There was a moment’s stunned pause, then both twins spoke at once.

“I thought you were Grom Queen!”

“But what about all the bets we took?”

Amity and Em glowered at their brother for his comment before returning their attention to one another. “She found out that I’m terrified of facing Grometheus and didn’t think I could beat it, so she volunteered herself.”

“Then why didn’t you stop her?!”

“I tried, but she just said she’d go over my head. At least this way I can help prepare her.” Amity groaned and buried her face in her hands.

“Right, and you want our help to…?” Ed asked, eyebrows raised.

“You two can make illusions. You can bring her fears to life and help her face them down in preparation.” Amity explained once she’d finished groaning into her hands.

“That… actually makes quite a bit of sense.” Em admitted with a smile. “Yeah, we can help you prep the cutie.”

“We will?”

“Yes, Ed. Do you want to be plunged into an eternal nightmare?” He shook his head. “Then we’re going to help Mittens and her girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” Amity denied, blushing pink as she did so.

“But! I do have one condition.” Em smirked and Amity sighed, she knew it couldn’t be that simple.

“What is it?” She asked, resigning herself to this fate.

“Why are you so sure you can’t face Grometheus?” Amity’s face twisted into a frown. Of all the things Em wanted to know, it had to be that. Even worse, she knew she wouldn’t be able to lie, her brother and sister knew her far too well for that to work. “Is it mom and dad?”

Amity shook her head. Such a thing had occurred to her as a candidate for worst fear, but she knew something that scared her more. “I don’t know what my worst fear is, but if it’s what I think it is, then I don’t want it broadcast to the rest of the Isles, especially when I can’t beat it.”

“That’s not an answer.” Ed complained, Em, however, continued to regard her sister thoughtfully.

“It’s something about Luz isn’t it?” She asked and Amity sighed at how annoyingly perceptive Em could be sometimes.

“Yes.” She answered shortly, hoping that would satisfy her sister’s curiosity but alas.

“What about her?” Em tapped a finger on her chin as she thought it over as Ed piped up.

“Maybe she’s scared of her feelings getting rejected or something.” He shrugged, and Amity tried and failed to suppress a wince at how inadvertently accurate he was.

“Oh, Mittens.” Em cooed sympathetically, pulling her sister into a hug. “That’s your greatest fear?”

“I think so.” Amity muttered grumpily into Em’s shoulder. “It’s stupid, I know.”

“Hey, it’s not stupid. Don’t beat yourself up, Mittens.” Em reassured her with a few back pats. “And don’t worry, we’ll help you and your lady love not die.”

“We will?”

“Yes, dumbass.”

“Thanks, I owe you two.” Amity smiled a little.

“Don’t sweat it. Besides, you and Luz have gotten us an out on all those bets we were going to have to pay.” Amity rolled her eyes fondly. Even if they were being helpful, they were still Ed and Em.

“Right, well, we’ll head over to The Owl House early tomorrow to get started.” With that established, the twins left Amity to flop on her bed and stare up at the ceiling. She should try to get some sleep too, tomorrow promised to be a very stressful day.

* * *

“Is it much further?” Ed complained as a branch Em had pushed aside swung back into his face.

“Not much farther.” Amity reassured them as she led the way through the woods and out into the clearing that the Owl House stood in. Turning back to address the twins, she lowered her voice so _it_ wouldn’t hear. “Now, you two stay back. I’d rather you didn’t have to deal wi-.”

“Hoot hoot! Oh, hey, Amity! You here to see Luuuuuuz?” Amity froze as the grating voice crowed from just behind her. Slowly, she turned around to face the horrifying bird-tube, which for some reason decided it needed to rub itself in her hair.

“Ah! Get off me!” She batted at the thing, which retreated a little.

“Rude!”

“If you think that’s rude, I’ll show you rude!” She threatened, holding up a finger menacingly. “Now, go tell Luz I’m here.”

“Alright! Geez!” The bird-tube retracted away and Amity followed after it, leaving her slightly stunned siblings behind. Sighing to herself, Amity entered the house and headed up the stairs to Luz’s room. As she opened the door, she caught a glimpse of the bird-tube retreating out of the window and she glared at it.

“If that bird-tube _ever_ talks to me again, I will destroy it.” She announced, loud enough for the retreating monstrosity to hear her. “Anyway, you ready to train?” Luz got up from kneeling on the floor in front of a chest and held up two sets of clothes.

“What should I wear to Grom? This one says I’m a witch with a dark side.” She held a flattering dark dress up to herself. “But this one says I’m an otter!” She held up what looked like a giant otter skin. “With a dark side.”

Well, you certainly would have a dark side if you were wearing a dead animal’s skin like that. Amity sighed deeply and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “Luz, you need to take this seriously. If you can’t defeat Grometheus, you could get seriously hurt, and the whole island will have to live out their worst nightmares forever.”

“Do you wanna hear my worst nightmare?” The annoying voice asked from right beside Amity’s head and she felt the horrifying thing press up against her cheek. That was the last straw.

“Amity, don’t!” Luz called out but it was too late. Will a screech of fury, Amity set upon the bird-tube, clawing for its soulless eyes. “Stop, Amity, stooooop!” Amity was just about to poke one of the bird-tube’s eyes out when she was grabbed under her arms and hauled away and out of the room.

“Let me kill it!” She shrieked, continuing to flail fruitlessly. Had Luz always been this strong?

“No! No killing Hooty, even if he is annoying.” Luz insisted, pulling Amity down the stairs and into the living room. “Promise you’re not going to kill him.”

“Fine, I won’t kill the freak of nature.” Amity grumbled and was released by Luz to brush herself off. “Right. Training?”

“Sure!” Luz chirped and allowed Amity to lead the way back out of the house, pointedly ignoring the bird-tube, which glared at her. With the two ready, Amity gestured for Ed and Em to join her.

“Grometheus will transform into your worst fears, so I’ve got my dear siblings here to help. You tell them what scares you and they’ll manifest it for you to face.” Amity explained as Ed and Em moved up to flank her and rested their arms on her shoulders as they often did.

“Right. In preparation, I’ve made a list.” Luz pulled a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to Amity, who opened it up and read the contents. She had no idea what half these things were, but it seemed Ed and Em did as they shared a mischievous look and simultaneously drew spell circles.

With a small pop of magic, a large version of Luz’s strange human device with a picture of a human wearing a strange hat appeared in front of them.

“Ah! Jerks online who wanna debate!” Luz shrieked in shock as something else poofed into existence by her feet. “No! Cats with human souls!” Finally, a large carton of some white liquid appeared and poured out in front of Luz, who let out the loudest yelp yet. “Not milk! I’m lactose intolerant!”

“How do you know what all these things are?” Amity asked her siblings who were busy giggling at Luz’s flailings.

“We’ve been spending time with that Gus kid. He’s actually pretty cool.”

“Why do I have a bad feeling about you talking to that kid?” Amity rolled her eyes and walked over to Luz, who was trying to kick one of the face-cats. “Luz, this isn’t enough. Grometheus isn’t just about things that make you uncomfortable, it goes deeper than that.” Amity took a deep breath to steady herself. “I can’t face Grometheus because I know if I see my fear manifest, I won’t be able to face it. So what do you truly fear?”

Luz stopped attacking the feline abomination and hummed in thought before glancing back at the Owl House, a frown twisting across her face. “I… I’m afraid that Eda thinks I’m too fragile for this, and that if she’s right, then I’ll never be a real witch.”

Amity suppressed a small wince. It wasn’t that she thought Luz was too fragile to fight Grometheus. She was just afraid of Luz getting hurt, it was totally different.

“Who’s Eda?” Em whispered to Amity in confusion.

“The Owl Lady.”

“Ohhh, we can work with that.” Em flashed Ed a smirk and the two traced their fingers in the air, forming a large circle together. The air shimmered and a giant menacing version of Eda suddenly loomed over Luz and bellowed.

“You’re inadequate!” With a flash of light, Luz was suddenly stuck in a high chair with a bib.

“Noooooo!” Luz cried out and tried in vain to free herself. Meanwhile, Amity just sighed deeply and put her face in her hand. This was going to be a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the whole Grom thing ended up being longer than I expected, so it's now a three parter! It does mean we get plenty of interaction with Ed and Em though who are fast becoming my favourite sibling characters to write. They've got that good blend of trolling yet supportive. 
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being hella cute. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and helping me get through a few difficult days.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	9. Chapter 9

This was getting nowhere. Amity and the twins had spent the last few hours trying to help Luz train against her greatest fear of Eda and her doubts, but they weren’t having much luck.

“You know, Mittens, maybe you can get Bump to sub you back in to fight Grom.” Ed whispered to her as Luz struggled in vain against yet another highchair trap, yelling incoherently as she did so.

“Knowing Luz, she’d probably find some way to interpose herself, no matter what I do. She’s stubborn like that.” Amity sighed. She’d never admit that Luz’s determination was one of the things Amity liked best about her, but she was able to understand that it got Luz into a lot of trouble at times.

“You’re probably right, but is this really going to help her beat Grom?” Em asked, watching as Luz finally managed to topple herself out of the highchair and scrambled to her feet.

“I don’t know, but we don’t really have any other options, and we’re nearly out of time before we have to get ready.” Amity said, checking her scroll for the time. She was about to call things off when there was a call from the house.

“What in the world is going on out here?” The three siblings swivelled around to see Eda striding out of the Owl House in a rather fetching suit. “Wait, is that supposed to be me? Dang, I look great!”

“You certainly do.” Em sighed and Amity rolled her eyes at her sister’s sappy expression.

“Wait a sec, are you training to be Grom Queen?” Eda seemed to have caught up with what was happening as the giant illusion of her vanished.

“So what if I am?” Luz demanded, getting to her feet and kicking one of the strange cat things aside.

“You think training is going to help you against Grom?” Eda marched over to Luz and towered over her, radiating disapproval. “You always go overboard and I have to bail you out, and what for this time? Some girl?” 

“I-! What? No!” Luz protested vehemently, casting an odd look over at Amity before returning her attention to Eda. “I’m just helping out a  _ friend _ .”

“Riiiiight. Look, kid, where’s the fun in watching some kid get eaten by a monster if it’s my kid?”

“Um, that kid was going to be me.” Amity pointed out with a grimace, and Eda just shrugged.

“Eh, I’m still fifty-fifty on you.”

“Well, maybe you’ll have more fun watching me  _ defeat  _ Grom!” Luz declared, smacking another illusory cat as Amity sighed.

“Luz, I don’t think you’re ready, but we’re out of time.”

“I’ll take it!” Luz pumped her fists excitedly and ran into the house yelling something about deciding on an outfit.

“She’s going to get herself killed, isn’t she?” Ed asked of the others.

“Yep.” They all chorused.

“Well, guess it’s a good thing I’m chaperoning so I can save her, as usual.” Eda shook her head and followed after Luz. “You kids should get ready too. Oh, and kid?” She looked directly at Amity. “I’m chaperoning, so that means no funny business with my Luz.”

Amity felt her ears burn in embarrassment as Eda sauntered back into her house and Ed and Em burst into laughter.

“Oh, man, Luz’s mom has got your number!” Ed laughed, wiping away imaginary tears.

“That’s not the only thing she’s got.” Em snickered, eyes fixed on Eda until she was out of sight. “Luz’s mom has got it going on.”

“Em, please.” Amity groaned at her sister’s latest crush on an older woman. “And she’s not Luz’s mom. Luz comes from the human realm, remember?”

“Well, duh, we know that.” Ed rolled his eyes. “But the Owl Lady sure does act like she’s Luz’s mom with how protective she is.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Amity sighed, rubbing at her temples. “We should get going and get ready for Grom. We don’t want to be late for the slaughter.”

* * *

Amity and her siblings arrived at Grom together. The twins had been unable to get dates for themselves and Amity had still been unable to muster up the courage to give Luz the note she’d written.

Ed and Em had gone off on their own whilst Amity waited nervously by the entrance. Eda was here, watching the proceedings with an air that made Amity suspect that, out of all the people here, she was the most likely to have spiked the punch with apple blood.

Sighing, Amity pulled the note out of her skirt pocket and looked at it. She wasn’t quite sure why she’d brought it with her. It was too late to give it to Luz, but it served as a reminder of why she wasn’t brave enough to do this.

“Amity?” With a small squeak, Amity stuffed the note back into her pocket and whirled to face Luz, her face heating as she set eyes upon her crush.

Luz was wearing a suit jacket and smart shirt and tie, which was very flattering, but had for some reason paired it with a tutu and leggings. Yet, despite this strange combination of styles, Luz made it work.

“I don’t know if I drank some milk earlier or I’m just really nervous, but my stomach is killing me.” Luz said, clutching at her abdomen and looking up at Amity in worry.

“You’ll be fine, Luz.” Amity walked over and placed a hand on Luz’s shoulder. “And you look nice. Strange, but nice.”

“Awwww, that’s possibly the nicest thing you’ve said to me.” Luz teased and Amity rolled her eyes.

“I’m sure I’ve said nicer things, like right now. Thank you for doing this for me. I can’t believe how fearless you are. It honestly amazes me.”

“You going soft on me, Blight?” Luz grinned at Amity, and it took her a lot of willpower not to lean in and kiss the adorable human.

“In your dreams.” Amity smirked at Luz, who was starting to look a little more confident. There was a lot of hooting and hollering from inside the gym, and Amity could hear Augustus hyping up the crowd for Luz’s grand entrance.

“That’s my cue. Wish me luck?”

Throwing caution to the wind, Amity leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to Luz’s cheek and felt her own burning as she did so. “Luck.” She murmured and stepped aside to allow the spotlight to shine on Luz.

Amity watched as Luz scurried into the gym to rapturous applause and the floor was parted to reveal the entrance to Grometheus’ prison. Amity followed after Luz and watched anxiously as she selected her weapon from the armoury and descended into the pit.

There was a loud rumble and in the centre of the pit, a large pile of purplish goop drew together, bubbling and twisting as Luz called out a challenge to the beast. Grometheus writhed in place before splitting and reforming into those cats with faces that approached Luz, begging her to help them.

Maybe the training had helped a little. Amity watched with approval as Luz swung her mace into the ground and cast an ice spell with a glyph attached to the weapon to knock the cat things away.

Amity was vaguely aware of Augustus providing colour commentary to the proceedings alongside the demon Eda hung around with. Amity, however, was too busy watching Luz fight Grometheus as it shifted into various forms.

Another strike with the ice-infused mace scattered Grometheus once more and Luz hooted in victory, not noticing as it reformed behind her. Amity was about to shout out a warning to Luz, but she whirled around just in time to see the blob take shape into something tall, looming over her. As Luz stepped back warily from the mass, it started to take shape and started to look very much like Owl Lady, only far more monstrous. Luz started to back away from the towering thing, but it suddenly lashed out and a tentacle latched onto her forehead.

“Luz!” Amity started shoving her way to the front. She needed to be sure Luz wasn’t hurt. The tentacle retracted from Luz and her eyes stopped glowing. Grometheus then shrank down into an odd rectangle with a large eye. Amity quickly realised what it was when it swung open and a woman who looked like an older version of Luz wearing glasses stepped out.

“Mom?! What are you doing here?” Luz asked in shock as she backed away from the manifestation of her mother.

“Luz, what is this terrible place?” The thing masquerading as Luz’s mother looked around. “This isn’t camp. Is this where you’ve been all these weeks?” Its voice got louder and more monstrous as it advanced on Luz. With each step it took towards Luz, it resembled her mother less and less and Grometheus more and more, until it was nearly as tall as the arena and it looked like Luz’s mother was riding Grometheus as it thundered out.

“Mija, have you been lying to me?!”

With a yelp, Luz dropped her weapon and fled up the ramp and out of the arena, wailing as she went. “I can’t do it, I can’t face my fear!”

“Luz!” Amity called out as Grometheus chased after her. Not waiting for anyone else to respond, Amity broke into a run, chasing after Luz and the monster. Luz was surprisingly fast and Amity soon found herself falling behind. Her stamina wasn’t what it used to be after she quit the grudgby team and she was fast running out of breath.

Just as she was about to lose them she felt herself get picked up by the collar and placed on a flying staff. “I’ve gotcha, kid.” Amity didn’t need to look to know who had picked her up, only Eda could sound quite so exasperated with everything. “Would it be crass of me to say ‘I toldja so’?” 

“Yes.” Amity sniped, crossing her arms and nearly losing her balance as she did so. “Just catch up so I can save Luz.”

“You can save her? Kid, if you recall, you were supposed to be the one to fight Grometheus, but you chickened out. What makes you think you can face him now?” Eda asked as they swept out of the school grounds and through the woods, dodging trees and bushes as they followed the panicked yelling of Luz and Grometheus’ roars.

“Well, I’ve got to do something!” Amity huffed, puffing out her cheeks. “It’s my fault Luz got herself into this mess, and it’s up to me to get her out of it. I do have a sense of personal responsibility.”

“Listen, kid, it’s admirable you want to make things right or whatever, but you’re not qualified to face this thing. Quite frankly, Bump’s kind of a moron for getting teens to fight a fear monster. So you stay back and get Luz out of the way, and I’ll deal with Grometheus.”

“No!” Amity tried to protest, but found herself roughly dumped off the staff at the edge of the trees. Out on a small grassy outcropping, Luz stood on the edge of the cliff, backed up to it by Grometheus.

“Too late, kid, just get Luz to safety!” Eda called down to Amity before hopping off her staff and blasting Grometheus with a spell. “Hands off my human, you misshapen prick!” Amity pushed her way to the edge of the forest and watched Eda land beside Luz and point her staff at Grometheus.

“Eda! You were right, I’m not ready for this!” Luz wailed and Amity could see tears welling in her eyes.

“It’s okay, Luz. I’ve got this.” Eda told her spinning her staff, ready to blast Grometheus. Amity couldn’t stand by and do nothing, not again. She’d already let Luz fight her battle for her, now Eda was going to the same.

“Get away from them!” Amity yelled, bursting from the trees and interposing herself between Grometheus and Luz. Quick as a whip, Grometheus lashed out with a limb and grabbed her, raising her high up in the air as she struggled fruitlessly.

“Amity! What are you doing?” Luz shrieked as Amity tried to break free.

“Fighting. My own. Battle!” She grunted out, straining as a tendril reached out and adhered to her forehead.

She felt Grometheus probing through her mind, sifting through all her fears and insecurities, delving deeper until it found something and retreated. Amity felt herself lowered to the ground as Grometheus took on a humanoid shape that, to her slightly woozy gaze, looked exactly like Luz. Reaching out, it stuck a hand into her pocket and pulled out her note.

With a cruel smirk, Grom-Luz tore the note in two and crumpled it up, letting it fall to the ground. Sniffing, Amity fought back tears and her hands fisted in her dress as she tried to tell herself it wasn’t real. Crouching down she picked up one of the pieces of torn up note and held it close to her chest and she saw out of the corner of her eye Luz pick up the other piece.

“Luz, don-.” She tried to stop Luz, but it was too late.

“Amity, you were afraid of getting rejected?” Amity could only nod mutely, feeling her cheeks burn with embarrassment. “It’s okay. I’ll go to Grom with you.” Amity looked up in shock to see Luz offering her hand.

“Y-You will?” Amity smiled hopefully and reached for the proffered hand.

“Of course, that’s what friends do.” Amity felt her heart drop just a little. She shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up, of course Luz only saw her as a friend. Still she smiled bravely through, but her attention was brought back to Grometheus as it writhed and formed into its natural form, its gigantic maw opening in an ear-splitting roar.

“Well, if that’s the case, may I have this dance?” With a smile and a nod, Luz took Amity’s hand and pulled her close, hand resting on her shoulder whilst Amity instinctively placed hers on Luz’s waist. Amity closed her eyes briefly and imagined music playing before opening her eyes and staring into Luz’s for a moment, almost getting lost in them, then turned to look at Grometheus.

They pranced forward, Luz taking the lead and twirling Amity around, lifting her up and letting her drop into a split. With a quick spin from Luz, Amity traced out a spell circle with her shoes before getting pulled back up and meeting Luz in the centre of the circle as alchemical goop bubbled at their feet.

With a groan, an alchemical abomination manifested and grew from the ground, raising the pair up as they balanced upon its head. They switched positions and Luz pulled a sheaf of her glyph papers out, holding them as though it was a fan and shooting Amity a smirk. With another turn, Amity dipped Luz down, letting her slap a slip of paper onto the abomination’s forehead.

Pulling Luz back up, they watched as Grometheus charged at them, jaws wide open. With a mental command, the abomination ducked down and prepared to charge for Grometheus whilst the witches leaped backwards off it. As they did, Luz pushed Amity up with a firm grip on her waist, sending her soaring up into the air. She watched as her abomination dove right into Grometheus’ mouth and Luz’s glyph activated. She didn’t see any more as she started to tumble back to earth, where Luz was waiting for her with arms outstretched.

Luz caught her, and with a few more spins, brought her back to the ground, and they finished with a flourish as an explosion blared behind them. Turning to look, where Grom had once been now sprouted a large tree with beautiful pink leaves.

“We did it?” She asked breathlessly, looking around and seeing the remains of Grom squirming away.

“We did!” Luz smiled brightly and Amity felt a tingle of magic around her hair. Reaching up she felt a crown manifesting itself upon her head, and looking at Luz, she saw an identical one form on her head too. “So, who did you want to ask out?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter.” Amity blushed, her hand reaching instinctively for the pocket where she’d stashed the crumpled note. In all the excitement and adrenaline of the dance, Amity had completely forgotten that Luz had only asked her to Grom because they were friends.

Suddenly, there was a loud cheering from the surrounding woods and all the students came flooding out to congratulate the new Grom Queens. Eda’s tiny demon was saying something, but Amity wasn’t really paying attention as they were hoisted up onto the shoulders of students and ferried away.

* * *

Amity still hadn’t removed her crown when she returned to her room that night. The celebrations of another year without eternal nightmares had felt hollow to her, and she knew exactly why. She might have gotten what she wanted, but not the way she wanted it.

There was nothing wrong with being friends with Luz. It was wonderful. But Amity was greedy. She wanted more, so much more than simple friendship.

With a deep sigh, Amity picked up the box in which she kept some of her more sentimental objects and brought it with her to the window, where she perched on the sill to look out across the forest. After a few moments, she tore her gaze from the window and opened up the box.

She didn’t keep much in there, just a few trinkets from a time she couldn’t remember. Smiling a little at the scrap of fabric that lay on top, Amity reached up and took off her crown. After contemplating it for a moment, she placed it in the box, and after a moment’s hesitation, retrieved the crumpled half of the note she’d kept and smoothed it out.

It had no indicator that it was an invitation to Grom, just the salutation, but it was enough of a memento to keep. Amity carefully placed the piece of paper in the box and closed it, looking out of the window again. She’d never thought about it before, but her window gave her a good view of the woods where she knew the Owl House was.

Would Luz still be awake? Remembering the events of the evening, seeing her greatest fear and knowing what it was? It was strange that she’d been able to pinpoint her own greatest fear with such accuracy. It felt like such a trivial thing to be afraid of, being rejected.

But that was something she could ponder another time. Turning back from the window, Amity replaced her box of sentimentalities and prepared for bed. Tomorrow was another day of school, and after the excitement of Grom, Amity needed a good long sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took long enough, but we got to the Grom fight, as well as a few other things. I actually have a theory about Amity's greatest fear and that it isn't so much getting rejected by Luz, it's a fear of not being loved and Luz not reciprocating her feelings is the latest form of it.
> 
> Other than that, I've not got much else to say about this chapter, I think it speaks for itself. Oh and Em's not the only one who's going to be crushing on Eda, she is surprisingly foxy for her age after all.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being one of the best friends a girl could have. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and being super cute.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	10. Chapter 10

The next day at Hexside was predictably chaotic. The moment Amity stepped through the front doors, she was immediately set upon by a mob of students.

“Amity! You’re so amazing!”

“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“Amity, will you go out with me?”

That last one made the young witch cringe as she tried to escape all the attention and the crowd. A little way away she could see Luz was similarly accosted by another group of students. Thinking quickly, Amity traced a blue spell circle with her foot, and about halfway down the corridor, duplicates of her and Luz appeared. It was a little trick she’d learned from Ed and Em a while back. She wasn’t great at illusion magic, nor was she really supposed to use it, but it did the job, as the two illusions called out for everyone’s attention.

Amity was very thankful they all seemed to have miniscule attention spans as the crowds stampeded away after the two illusions, leaving Amity free to grab Luz and pull her away.

“Amity? Was that you?” Luz looked over her shoulder at the illusions which drew everyone’s attention.

“Yes. Now, unless you want to spend the whole day beset by gormless students, we need to find a place to hide out for a bit.” Amity said, pulling Luz after her and trying to think of where they could go.

“I quite like that they all appreciate me…” Luz mumbled a little guiltily. “Nobody back home liked me.”

“It’s only because of the whole Grom thing. Nobody would care half as much if it weren’t for that.” Amity said and found herself jerked to a halt as Luz stopped dead in her tracks. “Luz?”

“They don’t really like me?” Luz asked quietly, looking down at the floor. “Does nobody at Hexside like me?”

“No, Luz, I didn’t mean it like that.” Amity reached out and grabbed Luz’s other hand, fighting hard against the blush that threatened to blossom in her cheeks. “People do care about you, I swear. You’ve got Willow, Augustus, Ed and Em. And you’ve got me.”

Luz dared to look up a little at Amity as she reassured her as earnestly as she could. “But those people back there, they’re shallow, Like Bosha is. They don’t care about Luz. They only care about Luz the Human, Slayer of Grometheus. Just like they don’t care about Amity, only about Amity Blight.”

Amity was painfully aware that her ploy wouldn’t last very long, but she needed to make sure Luz was okay. After a couple of moments, Luz nodded, slipping one of her hands free to swipe at her eyes. “Sorry, I’m still a bit delicate after last night.”

“It’s alright. Now we should probably find a place to hide out for a bit.” Amity started looking around to see where they could escape to, but was suddenly pulled over to an unassuming wall by Luz. “Luz?”

“I know a place!” The girl chirped happily, pressing at a few of the bricks whilst Amity looked around nervously. She could hear the other students coming down the corridor in search of them. With a flourish, Luz tapped the final brick, and with a grinding groan, part of the wall opened up, to reveal a door.

“What?” Amity was rather baffled by this but didn’t have time to question it as Luz pulled her through the door and into one of the strangest rooms Amity had ever seen. They’d emerged into a large circular room and onto a spiralling ramp lined with doors many of which weren’t even the right way up. Amity stopped to gawk at this sight whilst Luz slammed the door behind them.

“We can hang out here for a bit until things calm down.” Luz said confidently, starting to walk down the ramp to the ground floor.

“What even is this place?” Amity asked, following Luz and continuing to gawk at this strange room. None of the doors were the same and seemed to follow no rhyme or reason, which was saying something for the Isles and how chaotic things could be here.

“It’s sort of a hub for all the secret passages.” Luz explained, reaching the end of the ramp and turning to face Amity with a grin. “There’s loads all over the school. The detention track students told me about it, and then Eda taught me all the entrances. It took a  _ really _ long time, but I’m good at remembering stuff like that.”

“This place cannot be real. The whole school cannot link up to just this one room.” Amity muttered, trying and failing to make her map of the school work with this new room.

“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t.” Luz shrugged. “Maybe it’s a quantum superposition or something.”

“A what?”

“Something I read in a book back home.” Luz said with a small grin, before dropping down to sit against the wall. After a moment of internal debate, Amity sat down beside Luz, though she kept a deliberate distance between them.

“I’m sorry I upset you just now.” Amity apologised, still feeling rather guilty for her careless words.

“It’s alright, it’s my fault anyway. I shouldn’t let things get to me so much” Glancing over at the human, Amity was sad to see an unhappy frown on her face.

“It isn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it is!” Luz insisted stubbornly. “People back on earth never really liked me much, I was too awkward and weird for them. I don’t know why people here not liking me made me so upset.”

“Maybe because you thought they did?” Amity suggested, shrugging her shoulders. “Losing affection you thought you had hurts.”

“... You want to talk about it?” Amity shook her head at the offer.

“Not really, and I showed you anyway.” Amity pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Truth be told, she could imagine exactly how Luz was feeling. Even thinking about losing the bond she had with her siblings, tenuous as it may be at times, terrified her. She sat like that for a moment, before an arm wrapped its way around her shoulders and she was pulled into a tight hug.

“It’s okay, Amity, you’re not going to lose me.”

“You won’t lose me either.” Amity managed to squeak out, blushing furiously at the contact with Luz. She was saved from having to say anything else as Luz retracted her arm and got to her feet, stretching out as she did so.

“We should probably get going to class. Where are you headed?” It took Amity a few moments to recover from her close encounter of the Luz kind and recall what class she had first.

“Abominations with Professor Blank.” She said as she got to her feet, then remembered who she had that class with.

“Oh yeah, I forgot we had our first lesson together today.” Luz knocked on the side of her head with her fist. “Silly me. Anyway, let’s go.” Luz looked around for a moment before pointing up at one of the doors above. “That one should take us just outside the classroom.”

Reaching out, Luz grabbed Amity by the hand and started pulling her up the ramp, apparently not noticing how red Amity’s face got when she touched her. Up the ramp they went, past several doors until they reached one that was nearly at a right angle to the floor which Luz opened and beckoned Amity through.

Together they climbed through and tumbled gracelessly out into the corridor, just opposite Professor Blank’s classroom. Amity was, however, rather distracted by having Luz lying on top of her in their undignified heap.

“Sorry, Amity!” Luz got to her feet and offered Amity a hand which she took and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. “You’re looking rather red. Don’t tell me you’re so unfit a little run took it out of you.”

“Been a little while since I’ve done any kind of serious exercise.” Amity admitted, with a sheepish grin as they both walked over to the classroom door, Amity taking the handle. “At least everything seems calm.” With a push, she opened the door to a tumultuous noise and applause.

“Or maybe not.” Luz smirked as the class all abandoned their seats to flock around the pair and Amity sighed deeply. This was going to be a very long day.

* * *

Amity and Luz spent the rest of the day continually beset by various students asking them what their greatest fears were, what it was like facing Grom and so on. Amity hated all the attention, though Luz seemed to fluctuate between embarrassment and enjoyment of it all. Either way, Amity was relieved when school was over and she was able to make her escape from the throngs of students pestering her.

She’d originally intended upon fleeing back to Blight Manor and hiding out there, but her plan was scuppered by the surprising number of students she saw milling around outside the gates. She vaguely considered letting them all into the manor just to annoy her parents, but decided against it after a moment’s thought.

Instead, she slipped into the forest and headed towards the one place she was fairly certain none of the nosy students could follow, even if it was home to her nemesis.

“Oh, hiiiiiiiii!” Amity shuddered at the grating voice as she approached the front door. “You here to see your girlfrieeeeend?”

“No, and Luz is not my girlfriend!” Amity hissed, wondering how in the Titan’s name it knew about her feelings for Luz.

“Not Luz, silly! Eda! It’s been a long time since she’s had a girlfriend and she’s surprisingly foxyyyyyy.” It took a great deal of willpower for Amity not to assault the stupid thing like she had yesterday, it seemed to be unscathed once more, but she would love to see if she could injure it permanently.

“I am definitely not dating the witch who has to be at least twice my age.” Amity said flatly, though she was reminded of her sister’s apparent admiration for the Owl Lady. “Now open before I remove both your eyes and feed them to you.”

“So violent, jeez!” The owl complained, but it complied and swung open and allowed her entrance to the house. Scowling at the bird tube, Amity made her way inside the house and was greeted with an odd sight.

“Um, Luz, why are you and Eda standing on the table with a demon whilst clutching brooms?” Amity asked as the door swung shut behind her.

“Amity! Get off the floor!” Luz yelped, gesturing frantically to Amity who obeyed without question, hopping onto a nearby piece of furniture.

“And why do I need to be off the floor as well?”

“Floor shark, kid, it’ll eat anything that sets foot on the floor.” Eda said, her eyes darting about. “ _ Someone _ ,” She glowered at the demon. “Let it into the house because he thought he could use it as a navy for his demon army.”

“I see…” Amity sighed, resigning herself to this ridiculousness. Looking around, she couldn’t see any evidence of these floor sharks, and she was starting to doubt their existence when Luz yelps and pointed at the doorway leading to the hallway.

A fin cut through the floorboards, leaving no trace of its passage as it swept into the room and started circling the table Luz and the others were perched on. “Oh my… You weren’t kidding about the floor shark!”

“Of course we weren’t!” Eda rolled her eyes. “You think we’d joke about something this serious?”

“Honestly? Yes. You lot are weird enough that I don’t know whether you’re all having some kind of shared hallucination half the time.” Amity said honestly, watching the floor shark with a mix of awe and fear.

“Well, we aren’t, there really is a floor shark and we need to deal with it.” Eda snapped, crouching down to glare at the fin as it lazily cut through the floor. “I can’t blast it unless it’s out of the floor, so we need to lure it out somehow.”

“So we need bait, then.” Amity suggested, looking down at her platform and realising just how precarious it was.

“Well, good thing we’ve got the perfect bait right here!” Eda smirked and grabbed the little demon by the scruff of his neck.

“I did not consent to this!” He screeched, flailing helplessly in Eda’s grip.

“No! You can’t use King as bait!” Luz wailed, leaping up to cling to Eda’s arm. “He’s too weak and adorable!”

“I am not adorable!” The demon protested, continuing to flail his limbs uselessly.

“He won’t be in any real danger, and besides, he needs to learn personal responsibility.” Eda insisted, trying to pull her arm back to throw the demon.

“Nooooooo!” Luz grabbed onto the demon’s feet and stopped him from being tossed, and Amity had to wonder if they were taking this situation seriously at all.

“For the Titan’s sake.” She groaned, realising those three weren’t going to get anything done. Cracking her neck, Amity stood up and tried to leap off the table in a flashy move that would hopefully impress Luz.

As it turned out, tried was the operative word in this scenario, as the small table collapsed beneath her, sending Amity tumbling to the floor.

“Shit! Kid, get up!” Eda cried out, dropping the demon and getting ready to cast a spell as the fin immediately turned to focus on Amity, knifing through the floor towards her.

“Amity!” Luz let go of the demon as well, ignoring how he landed painfully on the table with a thump and a squeal. Jumping down from the table herself, Luz withdrew one of her slips of paper and rushed over to Amity’s side, slapping it down on the ground as the floor shark burst forth. It certainly was a shark, a large and scary one too with rows and rows of sharp teeth and Amity was fairly certain she could see right into its stomach before a pillar of ice exploded out of the ground and smacked it up into the air.

With a blast of fire from the Owl Lady, the floor shark was roasted and fell back to the floor, dead. “Nice going, Luz! You too, kid! You make for nearly as good a distraction as King!”

“Glad to know I’ve found my true calling.” Amity grumbled getting to her feet and brushing herself off. She’d just humiliated herself in front of Luz. She’d intended on taking the weird demon thing by herself, but instead had needed to be saved. It was deeply embarrassing, but Luz seemed more concerned with making sure she was okay than teasing her for her failure.

“Are you okay, Amity, not hurt or anything?” She asked frantically, inspecting Amity all over.

“I’m fine, only a couple of bruises to my ego.” Amity tried to brush off her shame with the lighthearted remark, but Luz seemed to see right through it.

“I think it was very brave of you to try facing it on your own.” She said, satisfied that Amity wasn’t hurt and pulled her into a tight hug, not noticing Amity’s furious blush. Over Luz’s shoulder, Amity could see Eda rolling her eyes and mouthing ‘gaaaaaaaay’ at them, to which she responded with the rudest gesture she knew.

“So, now that that’s sorted, can we go study?” Amity asked, pulling free, still glaring at Eda.

“Oh, yeah, unless Eda needs me for something else?” Luz looked to her mentor who put on her best innocent look which did not look very innocent.

“Nah, King and I have got it covered. He still needs to learn some personal responsibility and now he can learn it by helping me butcher this thing for dinner!” Eda kicked the floor shark’s cooked remains. “You kids go and have fun. As fun as studying can be, that is.”

“Well I’ll have you know that studying can be very fun, Eda.” Luz stuck her tongue out at her mentor before pulling Amity from the room and away from the sounds of demonic whining. The two girls went upstairs to Luz’s room, where Luz plopped down on the floor with a sigh amongst all her books.

“Sometimes I do wonder if studying all the tracks was such a good idea.” She said, rummaging aimlessly through the stacks of books. “Eight times as much work as everyone else. Even Viney and the other dual track kids have told me how hard it is having just a double load of homework.”

“There’s no shame in admitting it’s too much for you.” Amity said, joining Luz on the floor and grabbing a random book to thumb through idly.

“I put everyone through a lot of trouble to be able to do this, I don’t want to waste it.” Luz said with a sigh. “And I don’t want to disappoint Eda either.”

“How would you be disappointing her?” Amity looked up from her book, cocking her head curiously.

“Bump told me I wasn’t the first student who wanted to study all the tracks, it turns out that it was Eda, so I’m basically living up to her legacy by doing this. I can’t let her down.” Luz explained, her hands fidgeting uncomfortably in her lap.

“Her approval means a lot to you.”

“She was the first person to really believe in me. I love my Mamá, and she loves and supports me, but she never quite got me or the things I do, y’know?” Amity nodded. She knew the feeling of a parent just not understanding, though the idea of them loving or supporting her at all was a foreign idea. “But Eda does. It means a lot to me, so I can’t just give up.”

“Well, if anyone can do it, it’s you.” Amity tried not to blush as she smiled encouragingly at the human who made an odd dismissive sound.

“Pfft, nah. You’re way smarter than I am Amity. I wouldn’t get half this stuff done if you weren’t helping me.” Luz said humbly, waving her hands.

“Yes, well, we should probably get a start on your latest homework, shouldn’t we? We didn’t get any done yesterday, with all the training to fight Grometheus.” With a nod, Luz retrieved some papers from her bag and started shuffling through them whilst Amity watched. This was fine, she could just be friends with Luz. Even if her heart wanted more, it was enough to just be close to Luz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Grom and we get to see a little bit more of Luz's insecurities. She's often optimistic and happy, but she's still got a few things and having to face the illusion of her mother definitely would have brought some of those up. Also I am convinced floor sharks exist in the Boiling Isles and you can't prove otherwise. If giraffes come from there, who knows what other weird stuff does.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being the best at it. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


	11. Chapter 11

It was dark by the time Amity said her goodbyes to Luz and headed home. They’d spent a few hours together working on their homework, Amity frequently having to help Luz understand some of the theory behind the magic. Not that Amity minded helping Luz mind, and it wasn’t as though she didn’t get anything out of it either. Whenever she explained something that Luz didn’t understand before, the human would grace her with a happy smile that made her heart soar and her stomachs clench.

Shaking her head to clear it of those notions, Amity slapped her cheeks a couple of times. She couldn’t let anything slip, especially not back home. She dreaded to think what might happen if Mother or Father found out.

Thankfully, the crowds of eager students that had been flocking around the manor gates earlier had left by now, leaving Amity to enter the grounds unmolested and walk up the long path to the front door.

“Mittens!” Just as she’d been about to open the door, a voice called out to her from the bushes. Turning in confusion, Amity was surprised to see both Ed and Em hiding there.

“What are you two doing there?” Amity asked, approaching her older siblings.

“Where have you been? Mother has been looking for you for hours.” Em hissed, looking uncharacteristically nervous.

“I was with Luz. Why was she looking for me?” Amity asked, an anxious feeling rising up her throat. It was never a good thing when Mother wanted her for something.

“You’ve got a visitor, an important one who you’ve kept waiting for hours.” A trickle of fear ran down Amity’s spine. She could only think of one person who’d be considered important who would want to see her.

“It’s Lilith, isn’t it?” Em and Ed only nodded silently and Amity heaved a deep sigh. There would be no getting out of this. She could feel her hand starting to twitch as it sometimes did when she got particularly nervous and she grabbed it to force it to stay still. Taking a couple of deep breaths, Amity reached out for the door handle and pushed it open, entering the foyer and bracing herself.

“There you are, Amity. Where have you been?” Amity did her best not to wince as her mother’s imperious voice rang out.

“I was studying with friends, Mother.” She said, not looking up.

“I find that doubtful, since when I checked on your friends houses, you weren’t there.” Amity shuddered, but remained silent as her mother continued. “But we can deal with that later. The head of the Emperor’s Coven has been waiting to see you for hours. You are to go and see her, and apologise for your lateness.”

“Yes, Mother.” Amity intoned obediently, turning towards the sitting room, but was stopped by another call from her mother.

“She insisted upon waiting in your room.” Amity hadn’t thought it was possibly for her anxiety to get any worse, but it just did. Masking it as best as she could, Amity dutifully turned to walk up the stairs and made her way to her room. Just as her hand rested on the door handle, her mother had one last thing to say to her.

“Make a good impression, you’re upholding the family image.” With that last instruction, Amity heard her mother sweep away back to her chambers. Suppressing a small sigh, Amity opened the door and entered her room.

“Ah, Amity, there you are.” Lilith sat regally in Amity’s desk chair, facing the door with a small smile as Amity closed the door behind her.

“I’m sorry for keeping you waiting, Miss Lilith. I didn’t know you would be visiting today.” Amity said politely, already wishing this conversation would be over.

“Don’t worry, Amity, I wasn’t kept waiting for long.” There was something odd about Lilith’s smile and though Amity couldn’t quite place it, it made her very uneasy.

“So why did you wish to speak with me, Miss Lilith?” Amity asked, hoping to move the conversation quickly to its conclusion.

“Oh, I wanted to congratulate you, of course.” Lilith continued to smile as she got up and approached Amity. “I heard about your victory over Grometheus, and I knew I just had to congratulate my favourite pupil.”

Amity didn’t trust this. She’d had enough experience with the twins to know that if someone was being this nice, they wanted something. “Thank you, Miss Lilith.” She thanked her erstwhile mentor, not wanting to come off as too rude. Not yet, at least.

“Although, I did hear something a little disturbing about your victory.” Lilith turned away from Amity and walked over to the window, hands clasped behind her back.

“I’m not sure what you could be talking about.” Amity tilted her head curiously as Lilith sighed in mock disappointment.

“I heard that you didn’t triumph over Grometheus alone.” Lilith looked over her shoulder with a frown. “I heard that you fought the beast with my sister’s human.”

“It wasn’t my choice. She went over my head to be Grom Queen.” Amity said quickly, it wasn’t technically a lie, but Lilith didn’t seem to believe her.

“My dear Amity, I gave you the benefit of the doubt when we last spoke, but my patience is running thin.” Lilith turned around, eyes flashing. “I’ve allowed your… dalliance with the human to go on long enough. No more. You will assist me in capturing my sister and you will use your bond with the human to do it.”

“What bond? I don’t have one!” Amity insisted, eyes flicking nervously.

“Oh, then pray tell, what is this?” Lilith reached into a pocket and withdrew a folded scrap of purple paper. Amity felt her heart plummet into her stomachs. No wonder Lilith had asked to wait in her room, she’d been looking around.

“It’s nothing, I was writing a letter to Luz to apologize for my accusations of cheating during the Covention.” It was a weak lie, and the both of them knew it, as Lilith shook her head in disappointment.

“Amity, Amity, Amity. I wasn’t born yesterday. I can recognise an invitation to Grom when I see one. There’s no use pretending anymore.” Lilith smirked victoriously as Amity slumped.

“Fine, you’re right, I like Luz.”

“I know you do, Amity. Your young heart has been led astray, but it’s a good thing I’m here to guide you back to the right track, as the Emperor would want it.” Lilith walked back over and placed her free hand on Amity’s shoulder in a bizarre parody of affection.

“I’m not going to help you, you know.” Amity said defiantly, only for Lilith to chuckle.

“Oh, is that so?” She stepped to the side of Amity and walked over to the door. “If you’re willing to throw everything away over a fleeting crush, then there’s nothing I can do to stop you. And I’m sure your parents won’t mind either.”

Her stomachs lurched and Amity spun on the spot to face Lilith as she placed a hand on the door handle, ready to leave. “Wait!”

“Yes?” Lilith asked, Amity could hear the sickening smirk in her voice as Amity clenched her fists.

“I-I’ll do it. Just, don’t tell them. Please.”

“You’ll do what, Amity?” Amity’s nails dug into her palms, almost drawing blood as Lilith gloated.

“I’ll help you capture the Owl Lady.” Amity gritted out.

“Good girl.”

“On one condition.” Amity added quickly. “Promise me you wont hurt Luz.”

“I promise, I won’t harm the human. Though if you think that means she’ll be staying here, you’re sorely mistaken.” Lilith turned to face Amity, her face stern. “The human belongs in her own world. She’s not a part of ours.”

Amity wanted to argue, but her voice caught in her throat, so she simply nodded reluctantly as Lilith walked back to the door. “Good. I’ll be in touch.” And with that, she walked out of the room, leaving Amity to fall to her knees in dull shock.

“But she’s a part of my world.” She mumbled sadly to no one. She didn’t know how long she stayed kneeling on the floor for, but eventually, she got back to her feet and wandered over to her desk. She hadn’t noticed it when she’d walked in, but she now saw that her box of sentimentalities was lying open on her desk.

Lilith hadn’t even left the scrap of the note behind, probably to retain her leverage. Fighting back tears, Amity picked up the box and checked that everything was still in there. Satisfied it was, she picked up the box and set it down on the floor.

Taking a few steps back, Amity took a breath and drew a small spell circle that was mirrored on the ground beneath the box. When the circle was completed, it ignited and the fire quickly spread to the box, destroying it and its contents.

She should have learned after the twins broke into her secret room in the library that such things would only be used against her. She was a Blight, feelings were a luxury she couldn’t afford, not when she was surrounded by people who would take advantage of them and treat them as a weakness.

Amity watched as the purple flames eventually died down, leaving behind nothing but ashes. The deed done, Amity drew another circle to summon an abomination to clear up the mess whilst she collapsed face first onto her bed.

This was the worst feeling, but she clamped down on it. If she was going to keep Luz safe, she needed to get herself under control, even if she was loath to do so. All she had to do was play along with Lilith and keep her feelings in check, then everything would be alright.

But would it? Amity rolled over to look up at the ceiling, listening to the faint groans of her abomination as it swept up the ashes. If she did end up going through with this and Luz were to find out, something Amity was sure would happen, then it would destroy whatever relationship they had for good.

Amity was stuck between a rock and an even harder rock and she wasn’t sure what she could do about it. She needed a plan, but she was so stressed right now, even thinking this cohesively was a challenge.

Maybe she could work against Lilith somehow, but given Lilith’s ability to see through her attempts at lying, she wasn’t sure she could do that. Amity let out a small shriek of frustration and clapped her hands to her face. Her head hurt, she wasn’t cunning, she was straightforward and she worked hard but that wouldn’t work here. She needed someone who could do things like that...

Amity bolted upright, startling her abomination into dropping its dustpan. She knew exactly who to talk to about cunning and had years of experience in mischief.

* * *

“Hey, kid, aren’t you supposed to be in school right now or something?” Eda asked as she stood in the doorway to her house, leaning up against the bird-tube’s face. “I’m pretty sure that’s where Luz is.”

“I know, but I need your help and Luz can’t know about this.” Amity spoke quickly, looking around nervously. Before, she’d thought that Lilith wouldn’t stoop to any dirty tactics, but now she wasn’t so sure, nor was she certain she hadn’t been tailed.

“Oh, alright then, come in.” Eda rolled her eyes and stepped aside to allow Amity entry before slamming the door shut and ignoring the bird-tube’s hoot of protest. “So what’s the problem?”

“It’s about your older sister.”

“Younger.”

“Of course.” Amity couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “She came to my house yesterday to see me.”

“And?” Eda raised an eyebrow. “You’re one of her students or something aren’t you?”

“I was, though I haven’t considered her to be my mentor since that disaster at the Covention.” Amity huffed, crossed her arms to stop her hands from twitching with nervous energy.

“Right, well good for you I guess, so why do you need to tell me this?”

“She wanted me to help capture you and use my… friendship with Luz to get to you.” Amity explained, not liking how Eda’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh, Lili must be getting desperate if she’s trying to get kids to do her dirty work for her.” She chuckled with an evil grin. “And you told her no like a good fledgling member of the bad girl coven, right?”

Amity swallowed hard, eyes darting around nervously. “I did the first time. But I said yes last night.”

“You what?” Eda yelped, staring at Amity in shock. “Why in the name of the Titan would you say that?”

“You don’t understand!” Amity tried to keep her tone in check, but failed miserably. “She found out how I feel about Luz, and she threatened to tell my parents!”

“And?”

“They’re the Blights.” Amity needed Eda to understand. “If they find out about Luz, I don’t know what they’d do to her.”

“They’d have to get through me first, kid.” Eda jerked a cocky thumb at her chest. “I’m no pushover, unlike you.”

“They can get her expelled from Hexside, turn the entire isles against her.” Amity pleaded. Why wouldn’t Eda understand? “You don’t know what they’re capable of.”

Eda regarded her curiously for a moment before nodding slowly. “I think I do…” She sighed deeply and shook her head. “I suppose it’s not too big of a problem, I’m hoping you came here out of more than just guilt.”

“I thought perhaps if you knew that I’m supposed to be helping Lilith capture you, you’d be better prepared, and I could possibly undermine her plans.” Amity shrugged, glad that Eda seemed to be taking the threat of her parents seriously.

“Not a bad thought. Feed her some misinformation, that sort of thing?” Amity nodded. “I like it, feels good and devious, and the perfect counter to my baby sister’s very unsporting use of minors to do her dirty work.”

“Well, I’m glad we’re on the same page.” Amity unfolded her arms, finally able to start to relax a little.

“One thing though. Why did you not want Luz to know?” Amity shuffled uncomfortably on the spot.

“Because I’m not ready for her to know how I feel about her yet. I thought I was, but after seeing Grometheus…” She shuddered. “I know I’m not really ready.”

“Alright, kid, if you say so.” Eda shrugged, heading over to the door. “You should probably get back to that prison you call a school, lest someone misses you. And don’t worry about Lilith, just keep your head down and tell me anything she tells you. Let me deal with the rest.”

“Fine, I’ll keep you informed.” Amity walked to the door as well, pausing before she left. “Please promise me you’ll keep Luz safe. I don’t trust Lilith not to hurt her to get to you, even if she did promise.”

“Don’t worry, kid, Luz’s safety is always one of my top priorities, just below not dying or getting captured myself. And earning boatloads of gold.” Amity did not find Eda’s grin very reassuring, but she still nodded in acceptance and left the Owl House, her heart only a little lighter than it had been earlier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nice one Lilith, really trying to jump off the slippery slope here aren't you? At least Amity is been somewhat sensible in telling Eda about what's happening instead of just going along with it. That would cause so many unnecessary problems later on so it's good to nip that in the bud now.
> 
> I've set up a [discord](https://discord.gg/4t3y25e) so feel free to join and stuff, I'm pretty active there these days.
> 
> Big thanks to [machiavellianFictionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellianFictionist) for proofreading and being the best at it. Lots of thanks too to my lovely girlfriend [Ruby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyAndNanaAO3) for beta reading and being awesome.
> 
> Thank you too to my official supporters, send a PM or hop on the discord server for details.


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